Founding Engineer at Wayback Labs (Los Angeles, CA)
Wayback Labs· Los Angeles, CA·
Role details
Job description
Wayback Labs is a new startup building playful consumer products at the intersection of AI and camera roll.
We're seeking a founding engineer to join our tiny team! We're funded but pre-launch, so truly a ground floor opportunity for the right person.
The iPhone is now 18 years old (!!), and we all have thousands of photos and screenshots—captured over decades—just idling in our camera roll. Previously this was unstructured chaos. But we're using AI vision models to analyze your camera roll and construct a deeply personalized understanding of who you are—and we’re using that to build entirely new categories of personalized software. It's a huge opportunity.
Wayback Labs was started by Jonathan Wegener, who previously founded Timehop (the company that invented digital nostalgia, 25M+ users, acquired). He also ran the Memories product at Snapchat, and has spent the last decade obsessed with how photos shape memory and identity. He's an experienced founder who has started three companies, raised $17M, hired dozens of people, and worked at Snapchat and Tinder 👻🔥
About you -- two possible archetypes we have in mind:
Archetype 1: 🧠 iOS nerd, deep swift experience, obsessively watches/attends WWDC and tries all the latest APIs/SDKs 📱 built consumer mobile apps at scale 🎥 experience with rich media: photos, video, camera, audio (ex-snapchat, tiktok, clubhouse, instagram/facebook etc) 👁️ has used Apple vision, coreML etc. 🚀 has shipped side projects 📍 Located in California (SF/LA/SD) or willing to spend a week per month here.
Or Archetype 2: 🧠 backend generalist 🎥 experience working with photo/video and LLMs 📝 experience with evaluation/benchmarking 📱 built/managed consumer products at scale, ideally supporting mobile app front ends 🚀 has shipped side project 📍 Located in California (SF/LA/SD) or willing to spend a week per month here.
If any of this hits a nerve, we'd love to chat, email us at team@waybacklabs.app - you can ignore the lame form below :)
Why work at Wayback Labs
- Founding Engineer Role: True ground-floor opportunity at a pre-launch startup funded and led by a serial founder with a strong track record (Timehop acquisition, Snapchat/Tinder experience)
- Remote-First Culture: Role is remote, though California-based candidates or those willing to travel monthly are preferred
- Innovative Tech Stack: Work at the cutting edge of AI vision models (Apple Vision, CoreML, LLMs) applied to a massive, intimate dataset — camera rolls
- Playful Product Ethos: The company builds fun, engaging consumer products — not enterprise B2B software — which makes for a creative and enjoyable work environment
- Small Team, Big Impact: As a founding engineer, you'd have outsized influence on product direction, architecture, and company culture
- Founder Experience: Work directly with an experienced founder who has navigated the startup lifecycle multiple times (idea through acquisition), providing mentorship and stability
- Location: Remote with optional California presence (SF/LA/SD); ideal for candidates who want startup energy without being tied to an office