Log in to see accurate information
You're viewing this role as a guest. Sign in to see your application status, referral credits, and personalized match details.
Location
San Francisco, California
Salary
$160,000 - $180,000
Type
Full-Time
TL;DR
- Full-stack, backend-leaning + agents/evals
- Own features end-to-end + customers
- ICPC/quant/ex-founder builder types
- Grows into team lead
About TradeForm
TradeForm is building the first proactive AI workforce for direct procurement — the sourcing, supplier management, and supply-chain-risk work that big manufacturers and enterprises run on. Started ~Nov 2025 (incorporated Feb 2026) by three tightly-knit co-founders (one ex-NASA), it's moving far faster than its age suggests, already closing large enterprises with contract values up to ~$1M (expandable to ~$5M, since they charge a percentage of spend). It's backed by former Fortune-50 biotech and automotive executives, early investors in Netflix/DoorDash/Stripe/Lyft/Cerebras, and the founder of a multibillion-dollar procurement company, with an advisory board of former CPOs and C-suite leaders (Thermo Fisher, J&J, P&G transformations). The pitch that makes people light up: an underserved, unsexy industry begging for a real product, where enterprises want AI but don't know how to implement it — and TradeForm delivers a far better UI and more powerful tech than the incumbents.
The platform is end-to-end direct procurement: it ingests a bill of materials, adds suppliers, and continuously calculates multi-tier supplier risk plus ~10 types of risk (geopolitical, economic, legal, and more) with live scores; computes a "should-cost," runs quoting and (sometimes automated) negotiation, awards, generates purchase orders, and follows up until parts arrive. A general-purpose proactive agent, Tim, works across risk, orders, sourcing, and reporting — surfacing improvement ideas, chasing late orders, or autonomously sourcing a part in the cloud until it lands in the warehouse. With ~100+ integrations (ERP, MES, PLM, email, Slack/Teams, WhatsApp/iMessage), it onboards on a company's real data rather than from scratch. They're heavily investing in GTM — sponsoring eight conferences over ~2.5 months — and need engineers to service a growing enterprise pipeline.
About This Role
As a Founding Engineer, you'll build the systems that let enterprise teams trust an agent with high-stakes procurement work — structuring millions of procurement records, owning integrations with enterprise systems, shipping workflows customers use daily, and helping set the product roadmap. It's a full-stack seat that leans backend, spanning frontend, backend, data infrastructure, and deployment, and it's genuinely end-to-end: you own features from the initial customer conversation through deployment and iteration. This is also a service-and-scale hire — the founders (three co-founders + contractors) are stretched thin against a long-sales-cycle enterprise pipeline, and want engineers who can understand a customer's business needs during onboarding, build and maintain scalable infrastructure, and own an enterprise relationship (a Sierra-style "one person/team per customer" model) to prove value on ~2-month POCs worth up to $1M each.
The founders want a technical self-starter who can eventually lead a team — someone who builds without being told, follows the tech scene closely enough to find competitive edges, communicates well with customers, and is willing to learn an unfamiliar industry. Design matters: TradeForm's UI is a real differentiator against better-funded but uglier competitors, so a good eye for design (keeping the bar high as features ship) is a strong plus.
What You'll Do
- Build and ship across frontend, backend, data infrastructure, and deployment (Azure/Neon/Postgres, AWS/GCP)
- Own features from the initial customer conversation through deployment and iteration
- Develop reliable agent workflows, evaluations, and AI/ML pipelines; build harnesses and guardrails that make agent actions safe and auditable
- Design data schemas for complex procurement, manufacturing, and ERP data
- Own an enterprise relationship end to end (understand needs, service, expand); prove value on POCs
- Establish engineering practices that shape the future team; contribute to the roadmap
Requirements
- Full-stack, backend-leaning; can build end to end from a spec to near-prod with a few tweaks
- Fluent in ≥1 of Python, TypeScript, Java, C++ + modern backend frameworks (Next.js, FastAPI, Postgres, or similar)
- Strong CS fundamentals; scalable backend systems, databases, distributed architectures; cloud deployment (AWS/Azure/GCP)
- Strong understanding of LLMs, agents, tool use, ML infra, and evaluation (ML people welcome if strong)
- A good eye for design (keeps TradeForm's UI edge)
- High ownership, low ego, comfort with direct feedback
- Builds things without being assigned them (open source, research systems, products with real users)
- Technical self-starter who wants to lead a team eventually; ambitious, figures things out
- Decent communicator who can talk to customers, listen, and pitch solutions (willing to improve if not excellent)
- Willing to learn procurement / supply chain / ERP / manufacturing
- Culture: doesn't take themselves too seriously — will grind heads-down and unwind, play ball with the team, mesh in person
Background
- Exceptional new grads through 2–4 years; pedigree used as a signal but school prestige de-emphasized
- Strongest archetype: competitive-programming / olympiad brains (ICPC, USACO, IOI/IMO, quant-trading) — translational technical ability matters more than the logo; underserved-school-but-exceptional is a plus
- Ex-founders who tried and it didn't work out (wrong idea / co-founder breakup / didn't raise) — the risk-taking signal they value most; not serial 3-month job-hoppers
Who Will Thrive Here
- A backend-leaning full-stack builder who ships end to end and wants to own enterprise relationships and lead a team
- A competitive-programming / quant / olympiad-caliber technical mind who picks things up fast
- An ex-founder (tried-and-failed) who wants a product an industry is begging for, with a driven, tight team
- Someone who cares about "unsexy," high-value infrastructure and wants to win
- Culture-fit: grinds when needed, plays ball, meshes in person, low ego
Job Details
Experience
1-4 Years
Salary
$160,000 - $180,000
Equity
0.5% - 1%
Visa Sponsorship
No
Employment Type
Full-Time
Work Arrangement
In office
Work Intensity
9-9-5
Benefits & Perks
Doordash Comped
Gym
Full Workstation Provided
Insurance
Green Flags
ICPC / USACO / IOI / math-olympiad / quant background
Ex-founder (raised, tried, didn't work out; co-founder breakup) — took real risk
Open-source / research systems / products with real users, built unprompted
Red Flags
Front-end-only or weak on backend/systems
Ticket-taker who doesn't build unprompted; high ego / bad with direct feedback
Serial 3-month job-hopper
Required Candidate Q&A
Question 1
re you able to work in person in SF (Mission Bay), and what's your work authorization status?
Question 2
Why would you join a 3-person company in an unsexy space like direct procurement? Be honest — "for the money" is a fine answer.
Candidate scorecard
· 5 criteriaFull-stack, backend-leaning; builds end to end to near-prod
≥1 of Python/TS/Java/C++ + modern backend (Next.js/FastAPI/Postgres); cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP)
High ownership, low ego, direct-feedback comfort; wants to lead eventually