---
title: 'Founding Engineer at Doji'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/founding-engineer-doji-new-york-83fb1sbncpfr'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-06'
---

# Founding Engineer at Doji

- **Company:** Doji
- **Location:** New York, NY
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-06-08
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-06
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/doji/f454c07c-95c7-41b9-8c27-359f63c7184d

## Job description

The Opportunity

We’re building the future of fashion shopping with AI avatars: personalized try-on, social discovery, and interfaces that make shopping feel alive.

We’re a small, NYC-based team reimagining fashion shopping from the ground up. Our vision is playful, deeply personal, and centered on self-expression. To bring it to life, we combine advanced AI research, meticulous attention to detail, and an intuitive grasp of contemporary culture.

Previously we’ve built products used by millions at Apple, DeepMind, Meta, Shopify, and startups. Now we’re backed by the investors behind OpenAI, Cursor, and SKIMS.

## The Role

We’re looking for a founding engineer who can move fast across the stack and go deep when the problem demands it. Early on, the work will be varied: one week you might ship a scrappy 0-to-1 prototype, the next you might optimize a feed ranker, debug a slow endpoint, or build infrastructure the rest of the team depends on. Over time, as the company grows, you’ll own the areas where you’re strongest.

This is an in-person role from our office in NYC.

The best person for this role is T-shaped: broad enough to move across AI, backend, data, and product surfaces when needed, with real depth in at least one of these areas:

- AI product systems - diffusion pipelines, batch LLM workflows, vector search, evals, structured outputs, and reliability work under real product constraints.
- Recsys and personalization - retrieval and ranking systems, embedding-based search, learned rankers, sequence modeling of user behavior, and online experimentation.
- Core product infrastructure - databases and query optimization, data warehousing, infra-as-code, deployment, observability. You know where latency, reliability, and cost problems usually hide.

As a Founding Engineer you may…

- Build end-to-end prototypes fast
- Go deep when necessary: optimize the feed ranker, profile a slow endpoint, debug a gnarly race condition, chase down a memory leak
- Own personalization end-to-end: retrieval, ranking, cold-start, and the tradeoffs that make recommendations feel fresh and relevant
- Ship infrastructure the team builds on top of: data pipelines, internal tools, eval systems
- Build LLM-powered systems that actually work in production
- Work directly with the founders to turn early product ideas into working software
- Contribute to product strategy and figure out what's worth building

You're a great fit if you…

- Can move between scrappy prototyping and deep technical work
- Ramp fast on unfamiliar domains
- Have taste for consumer products and opinions about what makes them good
- Have worked on consumer products, social products, marketplaces, or other user-facing systems at meaningful scale
- Are self-driven, high-agency, and good at getting unstuck
- Have genuine interest in fashion, avatars, or creative expression

Bonus if you…

- Have shipped iOS or other native mobile experiences
- Have worked on the infrastructure side of AI/ML - training pipelines, eval systems, data flywheels

## About Doji

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Doji is an AI-powered mobile app that lets users create personalized photo-realistic avatars to virtually try on and discover fashion items, blending shopping with social inspiration.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage; $14M raised)
- **Headquarters**: New York, New York, United States
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Dorian Dargan (CEO) & Jim Winkens (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Technology / Fashion (AI-powered virtual try-ons and shopping)
- **Target customers**: B2C, primarily fashion-conscious consumers interested in online apparel shopping and self-expression
- **Mission**: “Reimagine fashion shopping from the ground up – not as something to buy, but something to become.” (via careers page)

## Products & Services
- **[Doji App]**: Free invite-only mobile app that creates a personal AI avatar from user selfies and full-body images, then renders realistic try-ons of real luxury and brand-name clothing. Users can scroll curated looks, share outfits, and explore new styles. Currently in beta with plans to integrate in-app purchasing (instead of redirecting to external sites).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (seed-stage startup)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding – $14M seed round (May 2025)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Thrive Capital (lead), Seven Seven Six (participation). Investors behind OpenAI, Cursor, and SKIMS are also involved (per careers page).
- **Growth Signals**: Team grew 71.4% YoY to 8 employees; app available in 80+ countries; early adopters reportedly impressed; the company is actively hiring (Founding iOS Engineer, Design Engineer, Social Media Intern).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Advanced AI technology**: Proprietary diffusion models deliver photo-realistic avatars and clothing try-ons, built by a team with deep AI research experience (DeepMind, Google).
- **Founder domain expertise**: Dorian Dargan previously worked on Apple VisionOS and Meta Quest; Jim Winkens was an AI researcher at DeepMind and Google. They emphasize both technical chops and “taste” to make avatar representations feel inspiring rather than uncanny.
- **Social & fun approach**: Unlike utilitarian try-on tools, Doji gamifies fashion exploration – users scroll endless looks on their avatar, making shopping discovery playful.

## Strategic Focus
- **Improve AI models**: The $14M funding is primarily dedicated to making avatars and try-ons faster, more accurate, and higher quality.
- **Integrate purchasing**: Currently users tap out to external retailers; the roadmap includes in-app buying.
- **Scale from invite-only to public**: The app remains in invite mode; removing that barrier will drive adoption.
- **Expand luxury & brand partnerships**: Onboarding emphasizes favorite brands; deeper retail partnerships are likely.

## Why Work Here
- **Small, tight-knit team**: Based in NYC with just 8 people, offering outsized impact and ownership.
- **Backed by elite investors**: Thrive Capital, Seven Seven Six – same backers as OpenAI and Cursor, indicating strong funding runway and network.
- **Cutting-edge work**: Daily involvement in advanced diffusion models, real-time avatar generation, and consumer AI.
- **Culture of craft**: “We go deep where others don’t – beyond surface. We lead with craft, curiosity and the courage to envision an entirely new paradigm.” (careers page)
- **Open roles**: Current openings include Founding iOS Engineer, Design Engineer, and Social Media Intern – all with referral bonuses ($10k for successful engineer hires).
- **Perks**: Not explicitly detailed, but startup environment typical of early-stage NYC tech companies; likely equity, flexible remote/hybrid, and direct collaboration with founders.

## Sources
1. [careers.doji.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/doji) – Doji Careers Page
2. [linkedin.com/company/doji-com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/doji-com) – LinkedIn Company Profile
3. [techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/15/doji-raises-14m-to-make-virtual-try-ons-fun-through-ai-avatars/) – TechCrunch: “Doji raises $14M to make virtual try-ons fun through AI avatars”
4. [tracxn.com](https://tracxn.com/d/companies/doji/__y8P67k-NrPfCpkrgSN32R5_Pf5xcM84xlMmARQmAhK8) – Tracxn Company Profile
5. [doji.com](https://www.doji.com/) – Doji Homepage

## Other roles at Doji

- [Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/designer-doji-new-york-4bg6jh4rjnza) — New York, NY
- [Social Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/social-lead-doji-new-york-tr0jmc6y7zpv) — New York, NY
- [In-House Creator](https://feeny.ai/job/in-house-creator-doji-new-york-g9g4kbarmy29) — New York, NY
- [Creator Marketing Intern](https://feeny.ai/job/creator-marketing-intern-doji-new-york-377e2vv6mqbn) — New York, NY
- [AI Creative Associate](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-creative-associate-doji-new-york-3d4d3bhzvpnq) — New York, NY
- [Social Media Intern](https://feeny.ai/job/social-media-intern-doji-new-york-j12y6f63f7qj) — New York, NY
- [Design Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/design-engineer-doji-new-york-7aqrmt72mbg9) — New York, NY
- [Marketing Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/marketing-lead-doji-new-york-7kpq1h9370r1) — New York, NY
- [Research Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineer-doji-new-york-rmc8y948dbmz) — New York, NY
- [Founding iOS Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-ios-engineer-doji-new-york-eag4m8nyhm1q) — New York, NY