OpenBuilder

The Company We’re building a web-based AI app builder that lets non-technical users create and deploy real applications without writing code. Our users expect things to “just work”—which means the platform underneath must be fast, reliable, and invisible. We’re an early-stage, YC startup building a small, high-ownership founding team. The Role We’re hiring a Founding DevOps Engineer to own infrastructure, reliability, and operational excellence from day one. This is a staff-level role with architectural authority and long-term impact. You’ll design systems that support AI-powered workloads, rapid iteration, and a product where non-technical users never think about infrastructure—yet can get instant help when something goes wrong. Human-in-the-Loop Infrastructure (What Makes This Role Unique) A core differentiator of our product is a human-in-the-loop marketplace. When a user’s app breaks or behaves unexpectedly, a vetted human developer can instantly jump into that user’s running VM, diagnose the issue, and fix it in real time—often before the user even understands what went wrong. As a founding DevOps engineer, you will: Design secure, auditable VM access for third-party human developers Build fast, safe workflows for live debugging and remediation Integrate deep observability so humans can act with full context Ensure isolation, permissions, and trust boundaries are rock-solid This system is powered by strong observability and tooling, including Sentry-style error tracking, logging, metrics, and traces that tie user-visible issues directly to infrastructure and code. What You’ll Do Own production infrastructure, deployments, and reliability Architect scalable systems for a high-growth AI web platform Design CI/CD pipelines that optimize for safety and speed Operate and scale VM-based workloads Build observability that reflects real user impact (errors, latency, failures) Lead incident response, postmortems, and long-term reliability improvements Set standards for security, backups, disaster recovery, and performance Work closely with product engineers to reduce operational complexity Help define engineering culture and best practices as the team grows Tech Stack TypeScript, React Django PostgreSQL Fly.io** (VM-based deployments)** Google Cloud Platform Cloudflare Nginx VSCode Web Observability: Sentry-style error tracking, logs, metrics, tracing What We’re Looking For 3+ years of experience in DevOps, SRE, or infrastructure engineering Proven ownership of production systems at scale Strong Linux, networking, and web infrastructure fundamentals Experience running PostgreSQL in production Cloud experience (GCP preferred) Comfort designing secure systems with live access and trust boundaries Product-oriented mindset for non-technical users Ability to make architectural decisions in ambiguous, early-stage environments Clear communicator who can explain complex systems simply Nice to Have Founding or early-stage startup experience Backend engineering background (especially Django) Experience with Cloudflare, edge platforms, or AI workloads Experience designing internal tooling or support platforms Why Join Founding engineer role with deep ownership and influence Build a genuinely differentiated AI product Solve hard infrastructure problems with real user impact Close collaboration with founders Competitive salary + meaningful equity Shape the technical foundation from day one

The Company We’re building a web-based AI app builder that lets non-technical users create, modify, and deploy real applications. At the core of the product is a browser-based IDE, powered by VS Code Web, where AI collaborates with users to write, edit, and evolve code safely. We believe AI should feel like a partner, not a black box. That means building systems that generate understandable changes, apply them predictably, and keep users in control. The Role We’re hiring a Founding Full-Stack Engineer to help build the heart of the product: the AI-powered app builder and IDE experience. This is a senior / staff-level founding role with broad scope and real product ownership. You’ll work directly with the founders to define how AI interacts with code, how changes are reviewed and applied, and how non-technical users successfully build real software. What You’ll Build A browser-based IDE using VS Code Web Custom VS Code extensions that enable AI-native workflows AI systems that: Generate code changes as explicit diffs Apply patches safely and deterministically Recover gracefully when models make mistakes Interfaces that make code changes understandable to non-technical users Tight feedback loops between user intent, AI output, and running applications AI & Code Intelligence AI is core to the product—not a feature bolted on later. You’ll work on: LLM-driven code generation, editing, and refactoring workflows Supporting both hosted APIs and open-source models Prompt design, evaluation, and iteration on real user tasks Code diffing, patch application, conflict resolution, and validation Guardrails that keep generated code safe, consistent, and debuggable Systems that connect AI output directly to live, running applications Integration with third-party APIs using MCP, allowing models to: Discover available tools and services Call external APIs in a structured, auditable way Generate and apply code that correctly wires external services into user apps Tech Stack TypeScript, React VS Code Web VS Code Extensions (extension API, language services) Django PostgreSQL LLMs: hosted models + open-source models Infra: Fly.io (VMs), Google Cloud Platform Edge & Networking: Cloudflare, Nginx What We’re Looking For 3+ years of experience as a software engineer Strong TypeScript and frontend engineering skills Experience building complex web applications or developer tools Familiarity with IDEs, editors, or VS Code extensions Hands-on experience working with LLMs or AI-powered systems Strong understanding of code structure, diffs, and refactoring workflows Product-oriented mindset for non-technical users Comfort shaping systems from scratch in an early-stage environment Clear communicator who enjoys working closely with founders Nice to Have Experience building IDEs, compilers, or language tooling Deep familiarity with VS Code internals or Monaco Experience with open-source LLMs and inference pipelines Backend experience (Django or similar) Previous founding or early-stage startup experience Why Join Founding engineer role with real ownership and influence Build an AI-native IDE from the ground up Work on hard problems at the intersection of AI, tooling, and UX Direct impact on how non-technical users create software Close collaboration with founders Competitive salary + meaningful equity