50 roles @ ElevenLabs + Paris/Toronto are hiring + "we will never build a sex robot"
Plus, a spotlight on tech marketing jobs
Good morning, my sweet little devils đč
Bacon is locked in for Fridayâs festivitiesâwbu? Send pics of your costumed pets (all species welcome). Letâs put our real MVPs in the spotlight.
PS. Can I make a request of you? If you were or are a founding hire, get in touch. I HAVE QUESTIONS.
Tell me everything, you hellions đ
I talk to candidates and hiring teams on a regular basis, and Iâm shocked by how many people are either open to, or want to, work on a 9-9-6 schedule. I think Iâm in a bubbleâŠ
To get the job, you have to show up
I like this post from William Liu at Simplify, who showed up to Tech Week and did the damn thing. Just by showing up he âŠ
đ€ Gave a Berkeley student a 1 minute interview with my CEO
đ Got recognized from my LinkedIn cringe
đ§ Met 10+ founders with insane dedication and vision
đ Met people from 4 different continents
đ„ Convinced an ML engineer to drop his job and found a startup
Applications are great. Facetime is better. GTFOut there.
Ask a founding engineer
Yâall say you want a founding job, but do you? In this occasional series, Iâll ask founding hires what itâs really like. First up:
Amsal Naseem is the founding engineer (and first hire) at Newton (the AI workflow platform for dental). Heâs worked in health tech since 2018, and even had a small company of his own at one point, before joining Newton in March.
Why were you interested in being a founding engineer?
If youâre not in a position to start your own company, itâs a good move to join someone elseâs as a founding engineer. By the time Iâm ready to launch my own thing, this experience will give me a lot of credibility.
How do you feel about the risks?
I am paid less than the market rate for big tech, but I get equity from a startup. Itâs a gamble, itâs a risk. But the greater the risk, the greater the reward. If the company works and the founders make an exit, theyâre set for life. The founding engineer may not be set for life, but they will have enough to start over.
What were you surprised to learn?
When I had my own company, I always questioned my validity as a founder. I thought everyone else knows what theyâre doing. But I learned thatâs not true. The most valuable lesson I have learned is that you donât have to know everything but you have to be open to learning.
What do you tell others who think they want to be founding engineers?
If youâre a 9-to-5 person, if you have responsibilities, if you want work-life balance, this role is not for you. If youâre the founding engineer, youâre working 70%â80% of what the founders are working.
So, you still want to be a founding engineer
Respect.
Bead AI is automating SOX testing with AI agents, theyâre hiring a founding engineer based in either London or SF.
Open Sesame is building a language-first interface, theyâre hiring a founding AI engineer and a founding design engineer to work in their Toronto office. đŠ
Kintow is automating back-office for restaurants, theyâre hiring a founding engineer who can work remote.
Brew.new, which calls itself âLovable for email marketing,â needs a frontend founding engineer.
Saba Mohsin is hiring an AI/ML founding engineer for her stealthy climate tech startup. DM Saba on Linkedin to apply.
Andy Wang at tax/accounting startup Finta needs a founding engineer in SF. Base pay runs $180Kâ$300K.
What does, and doesnât, matter anymore
Igor Ć arÄeviÄ over at Morning Coffee wrote about hiring in the age of AI. LLMs have changed everything ⊠except hiring (for now). His latest post is about the signals that do, and donât matter for engineers these days. Hereâs a sample:
Doesnât matter: syntax
Knowing the exact syntax for language features is less important when AI can fill in the gaps. Syntax memorization was always a proxy for something else: how much time someone had spent in the language ecosystem.
Does matter: systematic thinking
Engineers with this streak treat a prompt the way they treat a function. They define the goal, note the constraints, and sketch how to confirm the output. They run the loop, look at the result, and test it. When it fails, they change one variable at a time.
đOpen jobsđ
Okay this is important!!!! The AI voice model geniuses at ElevenLabs are hiring for more than FIFTY open roles. These positions are based all over the world, and some are REMOTE. YOUâRE WELCOME.
Generation Lab wants to help people live longer. An âageless generation.â They need a science lead to head up DNAm and TBS data analysis, whatever that means. But for us normals, they also have a head of product head provider of growth (business growth, not, like, brain growth).
Emily Cooper may not be working in Paris this season, but that doesnât mean you canât. đ«đ· Paris-based procurement software platform Pivot is hiring engineers, plus ops and CS folks to travailler dans leur bureau en France.
AI agent infrastructure platform Keycard, with its fresh $38 million backing, needs engineers and a founding marketing hire to work REMOTELY in Canada or the US.
Flow, the workflow for hardware development, has a hot and fresh $23 million series A and is hiring across engineering, sales, ops, and marketing. Jobs are in London and SF.
AI-native documentation platform Mintlify has SEVENTEEN open roles in its SF office. Engineering, sales, design, developer relations, CS, and recruiting. Perks include free mints and free Ubers. One arguably more valuable than the other.
Infisical, which calls itself an end-to-end secrets management, has SEVENTEEN highly secretive jobs open right now, many of them REMOTE.
Starbridge has a $42 million series A and TWENTY open jobs. While most are in NYC, some are REMOTE.
AI-native security analytics platform Vega and their super-duper cute website are hiring in Israel and the US.
Customer intel platform Enterpret is hiring for engineering in Bengaluru, GTM in NYC, and product in Bangalore. BONUS TIP: If one of the roles at Enterpret really speaks to you, then use the âdream jobâ function in Greenhouse.
SylphAI, an applied research lab automating every layer of engineering, is hiring engineers, web developers, and a chief of staff. DM co-founder Li Yin on LinkedIn to apply.
Job spotlight: tech marketing
Engineers may build the tech, but marketers make it sing. Forward this newsletter to your fave tech marketer and share the love. â€ïž
ElevenLabs needs a REMOTE SEO content marketer.
Infisical needs a technical content marketer in SF and a REMOTE founding growth marketer.
Strella needs a marketing manager in NYC (hybrid!).
Sequence needs an AI-native founding marketer in NYC or London.
Required reading
We knew this day would come! Wonder Studios is bringing gen AI to Hollywood. They raised a $12 million seed (they need a creative technologist BTW).
âWe will never build a sex robot,â says Mustafa Suleyman.
k iâll be thinking about you every day.
đšđ»âđ» jordan + bacon (who just got a hair cut)
