Harness Engineer

The Founding Engineer owns and builds the core product while Joseph pushes the leading/experimental edge. The two are a redundancy pair who cover for each other. The absolute must is harness engineering, not a traditional software-dev one. The mental shift Joseph wants: a normal engineer sees a bug and goes fixes it; this person designs a system that improves itself. For example, every user feedback click logs a screenshot + full error context, and a standing agent takes the nightly error logs, fixes things itself, and reports back what it improved for review. They must be deeply plugged into the frontier of models (niche/Hugging-Face models good at X or Y) and know how to integrate them so it feels seamless to the user, and eventually liaise closely with the ML hire to train small on-device models for parts of the creative pipeline (e.g., a brief-taking agent, a QA agent).

Profile shape: a T-shaped, well-rounded generalist (solid front and back end, not hyper-specialized) whose deep spike is harness engineering. The next six months are about four levers on the core product: bring down the time a video takes, increase the dopamine/magic, bring down cost per video, and build the self-improving/recursive harness for stability. What matters most to Joseph: what the candidate has built. Someone who's "gone through the fire" of something similar (core engineer on a comparable product, core contributor to a relevant open-source project).

What You'll Own

• The core product end to end, paired with Joseph (redundancy: cover for each other)
• Harness engineering: designing self-improving systems (nightly error-log-driven agent that fixes and reports back), not just fixing bugs
• Integrating frontier/niche models (Hugging-Face, model-per-task) so the pipeline feels seamless and fast
• The four six-month levers: cut time-to-video, raise dopamine/magic, cut cost per video, build recursive stability
• Liaising with the ML hire to train small on-device models (brief-taking agent, QA agent, etc.)

Requirements

• Harness engineering: a 100% must (the deep spike; the whole role hinges on it)
• T-shaped, well-rounded generalist: solid across back end and front end, not hyper-specialized
• Deeply plugged into the frontier: niche/open-source models, model integration, agentic pipelines
• A "brainiac" IC who holds the system in their head, not a tech-lead/manager profile
• Has built something similar and "gone through the fire" of it (core engineer / core OSS contributor on a comparable product); company/school irrelevant

Execution and Ownership

• Thinks in self-improving systems, not one-off fixes
• High agency, intense, all-in; interested in the video/creation problem (intrinsic motivation is screened for)
• Low ego ("non-positional": builds shared understanding, doesn't defend turf)
• New-school engineer

BACKGROUND

• Slope/craft over seniority;
• Newer-school audience welcomed; what they've built >> pedigree
• Renaissance/creative differentiator (nice-to-have, not required): also expresses a creative side (plays an instrument, makes content, real artistic intuition). A strong tiebreaker among equals, but they have enough creatives; competence first

Who Will Thrive Here

• A harness-engineering specialist who designs self-improving systems and lives at the model frontier
• A T-shaped generalist IC who holds the whole core product in their head, not a manager
• Someone who's built something similar and went through the fire of it
• All-in, intense, low-ego, in a concentrated-intent life phase; weekends-on
• Bonus: a creative (music, content) who intuits the art side as well as the engineering