Software Engineer (New Grad)

The mandate: Build the internal and external AI systems that power how Retell hires, sells, operates, and scales — production AI workflows, automations, and agent systems — on the Founders Initiatives team, working directly with founders and experienced engineers.

What's genuinely differentiated about this req versus its three siblings: it's the only one with a stated career path. After joining, engineers gravitate toward one of two tracks:

• Customer-facing — work with enterprise customers, design AI solutions, build integrations, become a trusted technical advisor. This is the on-ramp to Retell's Senior Forward Deployed Engineer role.
• Internal engineering — AI systems, internal tooling, automations, and infrastructure.

Most engineers touch both early and lean into one over time. That optionality is the strongest thing in this posting and should be central to outreach — a new grad who doesn't yet know whether they want to be customer-facing or deep technical gets to find out on the job instead of guessing at offer time.

What You'll Own

• Production-grade AI workflows, automations, and agent systems used across the company
• Real projects from day one, shipped to production, not a rotational or training program
• Direct collaboration with founders and senior engineers
• Over time: either enterprise-facing AI solution design and integrations, or internal AI infrastructure and tooling

Requirements

Hard gates:

• Bachelor's in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Electrical Engineering. EE is included here, unlike the sibling reqs.
• Already graduated. Stated twice and unambiguously — "We're not considering candidates who are still completing a bachelor's or master's degree." This excludes current seniors, December grads, and anyone in a master's program. It's the single most important screening question and recruiters will waste enormous time if they skip it.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals
• Able to thrive in a fast-moving startup
• On-site, Redwood City

Preferred:

• 2+ software engineering internships where they built real software
• Production software experience via internships, research, startups, or personal projects
• Backend development, APIs, AI tooling, or full-stack applications

Profile:

• Prefers building from scratch to maintaining legacy systems
• Wants direct founder and senior-engineer exposure
• Learns fast, takes ownership
• Wants weekly shipping over quarterly releases

Strong bonuses:

• A shipped side project with real users — the highest-signal item for this pool
• Startup internship at a company under 50 people, where the scope was real
• Hackathon wins, especially AI or agent tracks
• LLM or agent tooling experience
• Research with a shipped artifact
• Open-source contributions with actual usage

Location and visa:

• On-site, Redwood City
• Sponsorship: H-1B, TN, L-1, E-3, F-1 (OPT/CPT). Note: no O-1 on this req, unlike the three siblings. Consistent with a junior seat.

Anti-patterns

• Anyone still in school. Stated exclusion, and the most common near-miss in new-grad sourcing.
• Master's students, including those finishing imminently
• Candidates who need structure, mentorship, or a defined ramp
• Strong interviewers with nothing built independently
• Candidates optimizing for company brand over scope
• Anyone whose comp expectations are anchored to standard Bay Area new-grad offers — see the band note
• Remote requirements

Who Will Thrive Here

A recent graduate who has already built things nobody assigned them, did two real internships, and would rather own a system than be handed a ticket queue. They're deciding between depth and breadth as a career shape and want a place that lets them find out. They're not optimizing for the highest first-year number.