---
title: 'Founding Engineer at Wayback Labs'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/founding-engineer-wayback-labs-los-angeles-8mv4x32p8xnv'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-13'
---

# Founding Engineer at Wayback Labs

- **Company:** Wayback Labs
- **Location:** Los Angeles, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2025-09-09
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-13
- **Apply:** https://jobs.gem.com/wayback-labs/am9icG9zdDp4AAosi4Aq0HM24c4Z57Ct

## 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](https://x.com/vanlancker/status/1912870411714339190).

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 :)

## About Wayback Labs

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Wayback Labs is building playful consumer products at the intersection of AI and camera roll data, using vision models to analyze personal photo libraries and create personalized software experiences.
- **Entity Type**: Private (funded, pre-launch startup)
- **Headquarters**: Remote-first, with operations connected to California, United States (founder based in CA)
- **Founded**: 2025
- **Founders**: Jonathan Wegener (founder of Timehop, former Snapchat Memories product lead)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Consumer AI, Digital Nostalgia, Personalized Software
- Target customers: B2C — general consumers with large camera roll collections on iPhone
- Mission or purpose: To build technology that sees the human behind the photos, unlocking the intimate dataset of personal camera rolls to create deeply personalized software

## Products & Services
- **NearMisses**: An app that finds photo overlaps between friends before they met — social discovery through camera roll analysis
- **FaceFlip**: A flipbook automatically generated from a user's photos
- **Aurascan Photo Analysis**: Tool that analyzes an entire camera roll to generate insights about the user
- **Superlatives For All**: A fun, shareable awards generator based on personal photo data

All products are iOS-native consumer apps currently available on the App Store. The company is pre-launch on its larger vision, with these apps serving as early demonstrations.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (early-stage, pre-launch startup)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding raised — not publicly disclosed; founder Jonathan Wegener has collectively raised $17M across his previous three companies (Timehop, etc.)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly disclosed, but described as "funded"
- **Growth Signals**: Founding team has prior success building consumer products at scale (Timehop had 25M+ users and was acquired; Wegener also led Memories at Snapchat). Company is actively hiring a founding engineer, signaling early product development momentum and ambition to build a larger team.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Founder-Market Fit**: Jonathan Wegener has spent a decade obsessed with how photos shape memory and identity. He founded Timehop (the original digital nostalgia company), led Snapchat Memories, and brings deep domain expertise in photo-driven consumer apps.
- **Unique Data Moat**: Camera roll data is the most personal, untapped dataset on the planet. Wayback Labs is building proprietary AI models to analyze this data at scale, creating a defensible advantage over general-purpose AI apps.
- **First-Mover on a New Category**: Combining AI vision models with personal photo libraries to build "deeply personalized software" is an emerging space with few established players.
- **Proven Execution Track Record**: Founder has built and scaled three companies, raised $17M, hired dozens, and worked at both Snapchat and Tinder.

## Strategic Focus
- **Product Development**: Building the core AI-driven camera roll analysis engine and launching initial consumer apps (NearMisses, FaceFlip, Aurascan, Superlatives)
- **Talent Acquisition**: Currently seeking a founding engineer (iOS or backend generalist) — a "ground floor opportunity" — with preference for California-based candidates or those willing to spend a week per month there
- **User Growth**: Early apps are live on the App Store, likely being used for user research and data collection to refine the core product
- **Category Creation**: Positioning to define a new category of personalized software built on personal photo data

## Why Work Here
- **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

## Sources
1. [waybacklabs.app](https://waybacklabs.app/)
2. [globalwork.ai - Founding Engineer Job Posting](https://globalwork.ai/en/remote-jobs/usa/founding-engineer_424e685b-d315-469e-a516-b1b5afb3601e)
3. [Apple App Store - Wayback Labs, Inc](https://apps.apple.com/me/developer/wayback-labs-inc/id1813987793)
4. [Companies House - WAYBACKLABS LTD](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16822665)
5. [OpenGovUK - Waybacklabs Ltd](https://opengovuk.com/company/16822665)

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