---
title: 'Founding Engineer at Magnetic'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/founding-engineer-magnetic-san-francisco-vtmt1asdsbk4'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Founding Engineer at Magnetic

- **Company:** Magnetic
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $10M–$20M
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2025-10-15
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://jobs.gem.com/magnetic/am9icG9zdDpGWdw18XOnfUnQfUUQfQKC

## Job description

Magnetic is hiring a Founding Software Engineer to join our small team. You’ll be responsible for building and maintaining the backend systems that power our AI-driven tax prep platform, including model pipelines, data extraction logic, and integrations with tax software, as well as improving our client-facing touchpoints. You’ll work closely with engineering, product, and tax operations to ship features that directly improve speed, accuracy, and reliability for our customers.

## What You'll Build

- Vision-Language pipelines that process and extract structured data from unstructured client tax documents, relying on AI models, deterministic rules, and human-in-the-loop corrections.
- Systems to test and improve extraction accuracy on complex tax forms, handwritten notes, brokerage statements, and K-1s.
- Distributed cloud infrastructure to process thousands of client files concurrently across multiple firms and tax seasons.
- Integrations with major tax software systems, file portals, and document management tools.
- Features to improve our own client-facing surface area (intake, output artifacts, review process)

## About Magnetic

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: An AI-powered platform that optimizes digital advertising by analyzing live user profiles and real-time inventory to deliver high-performance audiences and campaigns.
- **Entity Type**: Private (per LinkedIn and BuiltIn) – conflicting reports from LeadIQ suggest a public listing (ticker: MAUCA.AX) as of July 2026, but no SEC filings were found to verify; we treat this as unconfirmed [leadiq.com](https://leadiq.com/c/magnetic--undefined/5a1d85f62400002400605e2a).
- **Headquarters**: New York, New York, United States (5-9 Union Square West, 3rd Floor) [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)
- **Founded**: 2008 [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)
- **Founders**: Not publicly available from search results

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: Advertising Services (with a strong focus on AI/ML and marketing technology) [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2), [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/magnetic)
- **Target Customers**: B2B – agencies, brands, and advertisers seeking scalable, data-driven campaign targeting and ROI [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/magnetic)
- **Mission/Purpose**: Deliver “smarter, faster, and more effective advertising” through continuous analysis of user attributes and real-time inventory [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)

## Products & Services
- **Magnetic AI Platform**: An AI-driven platform that uses machine learning to analyze attributes of over 350 million live user profiles alongside real-time supply and bid opportunities. It enables automated audience creation, cross-platform campaign coordination, and performant ad delivery. [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2), [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/magnetic)
- **Live Audiences**: A product launched in 2018 (mentioned in LinkedIn posts) that simplifies audience creation and campaign management across multiple channels. [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed for private status; no reliable public valuation available.
- **Key Metric (Private)**: Annual revenue estimated at **$87.3M** (LinkedIn data) with total funding of **$42.3M** across four rounds (Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C) and a later venture round [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2).
- **Notable Investors**: Fundraising included a $25M Series C in 2015 (5 investors), $10M Series B, $4M Series A, and an earlier seed round. Investor names not specified in search results. [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)
- **Acquisitions**: Has acquired four companies: Veruta (2010), Adnamic (2012), Cognitive Match (2014), and MyBuys (2015). [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)
- **Growth Signals**: Workforce grew ~20.9% year-over-year (per LinkedIn data, though employee count varies by source); multi-city presence (NYC, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Santa Monica); client case studies show “phenomenal” results for well-known brands (e.g., hotel chain). [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)

## Competitive Advantages
- **AI-Driven Audience Pool**: Access to live profiles of 350M+ users enables precise, cross-channel targeting that is brand-agnostic and data-rich. [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)
- **End-to-End Automation**: The platform replaces manual audience creation and cross-platform coordination, reducing friction for advertisers. [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)
- **Proven Model with Expansion Plans**: Per the careers page, the company has a “proven model” with “coherent and ambitious expansion plans” driven by new architecture and features, yet remains a small enough team for individuals to have significant impact. [magnetic.is](https://magnetic.is/careers-software-engineer)

## Strategic Focus
- **Platform Expansion**: Continued development of AI capabilities, real-time data processing, and automation (e.g., Live Audiences). Past emphasis on building a network of high-performance web servers, expanding Hadoop processing, and centralizing data on MongoDB. [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2), [magnetic.is](https://magnetic.is/careers-software-engineer)
- **Growth**: Scaling the engineering team and entering new verticals/geographies, supported by acquisition history and a growing headcount. [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)

## Why Work Here
- **Culture & Environment**: Described as a successful startup with an “elegant Rails application” and cutting-edge tech stack (Ruby, Rails, Hadoop, MongoDB, Node.js). Emphasis on making a huge impact across the full stack due to team size. On-site work is the norm (physical offices in NYC, SF, etc.) [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/magnetic), [magnetic.is](https://magnetic.is/careers-software-engineer)
- **Perks**: Competitive compensation, excellent medical/vision/dental insurance, fully paid 401K, stocked snack shelf and fridge, free beer, pool table, and stunning views from a Times Square office. [magnetic.is](https://magnetic.is/careers-software-engineer)
- **Engineering Culture**: Agile methodology, continuous integration, ownership of code in production, and a preference for generalist engineers with startup experience. Tech stack includes low-latency systems and large-scale data processing (Hadoop, MongoDB). [magnetic.is](https://magnetic.is/careers-software-engineer)
- **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: Not explicitly stated, but BuiltIn marks offices as “OnSite Workspace – employees work from physical offices.” Typical time on-site listed as “None” (likely means no remote option). Check current job postings for any flexibility. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/magnetic)

## Sources
1. [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/magnetic_2)
2. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/magnetic)
3. [magnetic.is](https://magnetic.is/careers-software-engineer)
4. [leadiq.com](https://leadiq.com/c/magnetic--undefined/5a1d85f62400002400605e2a)
5. [builtinnyc.com](https://www.builtinnyc.com/company/magnetic)

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