Founding Engineer (Enterprise Secure AI Platform)

Founding Engineer (Enterprise Secure AI Platform)

You’ll help build the secure enterprise foundation for an AI platform—where reliability, trust, and real-world integration matter as much as model performance. If you like turning ambiguous requirements into working systems, this is a rare chance to shape the technical direction from day one.

Also a fit if you call yourself: Security-minded AI Engineer, Platform Engineer, Applied AI Engineer

The Work

• Own the secure platform foundation for enterprise AI: design and implement the core services that make secure deployments possible (auth, data handling, access controls, and operational safety).
• Drive end-to-end integration ownership across the stack—turning requirements into working flows that connect product needs to engineering reality (APIs, services, infrastructure, and deployment).
• Build reliability into the system, not around it: add verification, monitoring, and pragmatic safeguards so issues are caught early and failures are diagnosable.
• Handle ambiguity with evidence: when requirements are fuzzy, you propose a path, validate it quickly, and iterate based on what you learn.
• Collaborate to translate enterprise expectations into engineering decisions: keep security and enterprise constraints clear as requirements evolve, and align on practical next steps.

Who you are (fit)

• You’ve shipped production systems end-to-end (not just components) and can explain the tradeoffs you made to get to a reliable release.
• You have strong security engineering instincts—you know how to think about access control, data boundaries, and safe-by-default design.
• You can turn unclear requirements into concrete plans and deliver the first working version without waiting for perfect clarity.
• You’ve built verification/observability into your work (tests, instrumentation, runbooks, or other practical mechanisms that reduce “mystery failures”).
• You’re comfortable working through shifting priorities while keeping quality high.

Success in this role

• You deliver enterprise-secure, customer-facing integrations end-to-end, with clear operational behavior (so teams can trust what’s happening).
• You establish customer-relevant reliability and diagnosability for the areas you own—verification and observability that make issues actionable.
• You consistently apply a security-first mindset (least privilege, safe failure modes, and clear data boundaries) while moving from requirements to production.

What you’ll need

• Production engineering experience: you’ve shipped and operated real systems, and you can talk through the reliability and security tradeoffs you made.
• Security-first platform thinking: you understand access control, data boundaries, and safe-by-default design patterns.
• Execution under ambiguity: you can propose a path, validate quickly, and iterate based on evidence.
• Pragmatic verification/observability: you add the checks and instrumentation that make outcomes visible.
• Strong collaboration habits: you align quickly, document decisions when needed, and follow through.
• Experience building with Python/TypeScript/React.
• Ability to work Sunnyvale in-office.

Even Better If

• You’ve worked on enterprise integrations (SSO/SAML, RBAC, audit logging, compliance-adjacent workflows, or similar).
• You’ve built systems where security requirements were non-negotiable and you had to earn trust through measurable reliability.

Constraints / Requirements

• You’ll be expected to operate with a security mindset: assume data is sensitive, default to least privilege, and design for safe failure modes.
• You’ll need to move fast without sacrificing quality—priorities may shift, but you’re responsible for keeping reliability and security intact.
• You should be comfortable owning work end-to-end, including integration details and operational readiness.

Who Thrives Here

• You ask crisp clarifying questions, then move—preferring concrete next steps over open-ended debate.
• You communicate in a friendly, direct, facilitative way: you surface what’s known, what’s uncertain, and what you’ll do next to close the gap.
• You take ownership of reliability—not by promising, but by adding the checks and instrumentation that make outcomes visible.
• You enjoy shaping the work as you go: you help define the role’s boundaries and then deliver inside them.

The Team

You’ll work closely with the team that’s building the enterprise secure AI platform—people who care about getting the details right and keeping momentum. The collaboration style is practical and iterative: quick alignment, clear next steps, and steady follow-through. You’ll have room to influence how the platform is built, and you’ll be expected to bring evidence when requirements are unclear.

Comp and Benefits

Compensation is competitive and based on experience. The hiring team will share specifics directly.
Benefits include:

• Health insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Paid time off
• Parental leave
• Professional development support

Non-Traditional Backgrounds

If you’ve built and shipped secure, reliable systems in any environment—startup or enterprise—we’d still love to hear from you. The key is evidence of end-to-end ownership and reliability, not a specific background label.

How to Apply

Interested? You’ll start with a conversation with Navii, the hiring team’s AI—it's a chance for us to learn about you beyond your resume.