--- title: Founding Software Engineer at Hypercubic description: Hypercubic is hiring for the Founding Software Engineer role in San Francisco, CA. Pays $125K–$300K per year. See the full description and apply. type: job url: https://www.foundrole.com/jobs/founding-software-engineer-at-hypercubic-01a1380b-1179-793a-b0d8-6df61b89e0d9 date: 2026-10-14T02:20:53Z og_description: Join Hypercubic as Founding Software Engineer in San Francisco, CA. Pays $125K–$300K per year. Full-time, on-site role. og_image: https://www.foundrole.com/og/mze3x5.png breadcrumbs: - label: Home url: https://www.foundrole.com/ - label: Search url: https://www.foundrole.com/jobs --- | | | |---|---| | **Company** | Hypercubic | | **Location** | San Francisco, CA | | **Salary** | $125K/yr - $300K/yr | | **Type** | Full Time | | **Posted** | Oct 13, 2026 | ## Description The world’s most critical infrastructure—banking, airlines, utilities—is held together by millions of lines of COBOL and mainframe logic written decades ago. The engineers who built it are retiring and the documentation is fading. These systems are "too big to fail" and "too complex to change," leaving global infrastructure frozen in the 1970s. At Hypercubic, we’re building AI systems that can understand, reason about, and rearchitect large-scale legacy applications. We work at the intersection of program analysis, knowledge extraction, and agentic systems, applied to some of the most critical enterprise software in the world. [Learn](https://www.hypercubic.ai/insights/mainframe-modernization-is-a-hard-and-fun-problem-to-solve) why we're excited about mainframe modernization. ## About the Role We’re looking for a true generalized specialist with unusually strong technical and product taste. You will work directly with the CTO to design, prototype, and productionize AI-powered systems from first principles. This is a founding role with meaningful ownership over architecture, product direction, and engineering culture. It is suited for someone with strong fundamentals and comfortable operating across abstraction layers, from low-level system reasoning to high-level product UX. ## **What You’ll Do** - Rapidly prototype new concepts and features to validate ideas before full implementation. - Ship AI-driven features end to end, from model interaction to user-facing workflows. - Set early engineering standards around testing, reliability, and code quality. - Translate ambiguous problem statements into concrete experiments, constraints, and working systems. - Lead architecture decisions and long-term technical direction with the CTO. - Collaborate with a highly diverse group of subject matter experts and customers from various industries (banks, insurance, airlines, and more) ## **You are a Fit if…** - You care deeply about your work and the product. - You are comfortable with uncertainty and enjoy figuring out what to build before how to build it. - You think in systems and feedback loops, not just features. - You can move fast and slow. Prototyping ideas in hours, then building enterprise-grade features to a high-quality bar. - You want to become world-class at AI engineering. - You have a bias for action and a track record of working in fast-paced environments with urgency. ## **Nice to Have** - Strong testing intuition, including TDD and property-based testing. - Experience building and maintaining production-grade agentic or autonomous systems. - Exposure to legacy systems (especially mainframes or COBOL), compilers, program analysis techniques, or high-performance computing (HPC). - Familiarity with enterprise software constraints. ## **Logistics** - Location: This role is in-person based in San Francisco, California. - Benefits: Hypercubic offers generous health, dental, and vision benefits, PTO, and relocation support as needed. - Sponsorship: Unfortunately, we are unable to sponsor new H1B employment visas at this time. However, we can support H1B transfers and OPT. ## Skills - High-Performance Computing - Prototyping - Program Analysis - Code Quality - Technical Direction - Mainframe Systems - Compilers - Test-Driven Development (Tdd) - Autonomous System - AI Engineering - Common Business Oriented Language COBOL - Communication ## Benefits - Paid Time Off (Pto) - Vision Insurance - Dental Insurance - Health Insurance ## Related - [Technology & Software jobs](https://www.foundrole.com/careers/technology-and-software?utm_source=ai_markdown)- [Software Development jobs](https://www.foundrole.com/careers/technology-and-software/software-development?utm_source=ai_markdown)- [Software Developer / Engineer jobs](https://www.foundrole.com/careers/technology-and-software/software-development/software-developer-engineer?utm_source=ai_markdown)- [Browse all companies](https://www.foundrole.com/companies?utm_source=ai_markdown) ## Explore this job market - [California](https://www.foundrole.com/locations/us/california?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 275249 jobs - [Software Products](https://www.foundrole.com/sectors/technology/software-products?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 116693 jobs - [San Francisco, CA](https://www.foundrole.com/locations/us/california/san-francisco?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 26876 jobs ## Related pages - [California](https://www.foundrole.com/locations/us/california?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 275249 jobs - [Software Products](https://www.foundrole.com/sectors/technology/software-products?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 116693 jobs - [San Francisco, CA](https://www.foundrole.com/locations/us/california/san-francisco?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 26876 jobs ## Browse - [Companies](https://www.foundrole.com/companies?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [Jobs by country](https://www.foundrole.com/locations?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [Jobs in the United States by state and city](https://www.foundrole.com/locations/us?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [H1B sponsors by location](https://www.foundrole.com/h1b-sponsors?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [H1B salaries](https://www.foundrole.com/h1b-salaries?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [Sectors and industries](https://www.foundrole.com/sectors?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [Jobs by career field](https://www.foundrole.com/careers?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [Latest jobs](https://www.foundrole.com/jobs/latest?utm_source=ai_markdown)