Founding Engineer
Company: Terac
Location: San Francisco
Posted on: February 14, 2026
|
|
|
Job Description:
Job Description Job Description Founding Engineer Location: San
Francisco, CA (in-person preferred) Team: Engineering (reporting to
CTO Jack Blair) Stage: Seed ($9M raised from Emergence, SignalFire,
Audacious, ZFellows) About Terac We’re building a search engine for
human thought . While you might go to Google to search through the
web, you come to Terac to search through human opinion . Consumer
research teams at DoorDash, Notion, and Posh use Terac to test
features and products before launch. Our AI-native researcher
recruits the right panelists, conducts real voice interviews, and
delivers transcripts and insights within hours—not weeks. We’re
solving a once-in-a-generation problem at the frontier of Voice AI,
memory systems, and large-scale data matching . As the world races
to automate engineering, the real bottleneck is understanding what
to build and who to build for. Terac exists to fix that. We started
5 months ago and have already raised $9M, built an in-house AI
panel of thousands, and launched pilots with major consumer
companies. Joining now means being part of the founding team
defining the next $100B market. The Role We’re looking for a
founding engineer who wants to own huge pieces of the product, move
fast, and help build the future of human understanding. You’ll work
directly with our CTO to design, build, and scale the core systems
behind Terac, from our sourcing algorithms and interviewer agents
to our panel data pipelines and researcher tools. This is not a
“feature factory” role. You’ll ship end-to-end systems, debug live
customer interactions, and shape the company’s engineering DNA from
day one. What You’ll Do Own and scale major parts of Terac’s core
platform (e.g. sourcing algorithm, interviewer agent, data analysis
pipelines). Architect and implement fullstack features using
Next.js, TypeScript, tRPC, Prisma , and Supabase . Collaborate with
the founders to shape product direction and prioritize the roadmap.
Fix bugs, build fast, and move from “0 ? 1 ? scale” repeatedly.
Recruit and mentor future engineers as the team grows. Use and
improve Terac every day. We’re power users of our own product.
About You You’re the kind of engineer who might have once tried to
start a company yourself, or still might someday. You’re
relentless, hands-on, and care deeply about building something
meaningful. Must-haves 3 years of experience building fullstack
products end-to-end. Deep fluency with TypeScript , React/Next.js ,
and modern backend tools ( tRPC, Prisma, Postgres ). Experience
with LLMs, RAG architectures, and AI SDKs (Vercel AI SDK, Gemini,
etc.). Proven ability to take full ownership of projects or small
teams. Strong technical independence; you can design, ship, and
iterate. Nice-to-haves Experience as a founding engineer or
early-stage builder. Infra wizardry (AWS, CI/CD, scalable data
systems). Familiarity with Terac’s stack: Vercel, Trigger.dev,
Infisical, AWS, Supabase. Previous startup or high-ownership
environments. Why Terac High level engineering challenge: We’re
building the infrastructure for matching questions to the best
human answers at a global scale. Real impact, real users: Hundreds
of people interact with our systems every day. Speed & autonomy:
Small team, high trust, no bureaucracy. Meaningful equity: Join
early and help shape the company’s DNA. The Stack Frontend: Next.js
(React), TypeScript, Tailwind, Shadcn, Framer Motion Backend: tRPC,
Prisma ORM, Supabase Postgres Infra: Vercel, Trigger.dev,
Infisical, GitHub Actions, AWS AI: Vercel AI SDK, Gemini Live API,
Gemini 2.5 Pro Terac — Build the search engine for human
thought.
Keywords: Terac, Daly City , Founding Engineer, Engineering , San Francisco, California
