[Hiring] Founding Engineer @Jack & Jill/External ATS

Role Description

As the first engineer at Catalon, you will build the AI-native infrastructure automating manual workflows for the $6 trillion chemical industry. Working directly with founders from Tesla and Oxford Physics, you will own the entire stack—from agentic orchestration to production deployment—transforming how global manufacturers handle complex operations in a high-trust, zero-bureaucracy environment.

Why this role is remarkable:

• Join as employee #1 at an Entrepreneur First S25 company already deployed with chemical companies, offering massive ownership and 0.5-1% equity.
• Solve high-stakes problems in a massive, $6 trillion traditional market that still relies on manual processes, email, and legacy spreadsheets.
• Work in a high-velocity environment with founders from top-tier backgrounds (Tesla, Berkeley, Oxford Physics) using a cutting-edge, AI-native technical stack.

What you will do:

• Architect and build agentic AI systems using Pydantic AI, MCP servers, and tool-use orchestration to automate complex chemical industry workflows.
• Design and implement end-to-end features across the full stack, including React/Next.js frontends, Postgres databases, and robust API integrations with ERPs like SAP and Oracle.
• Shape the foundational engineering culture and technical roadmap while iterating directly with customers to turn ambiguous problems into shipped products.

Qualifications

• 1-4 years of post-grad experience.
• A proven track record of shipping production-grade AI products or complex B2B SaaS systems end-to-end.
• Deep technical expertise in agentic orchestration (chain-of-thought, evals, RAG).
• Comfortable managing the ambiguity of a pre-seed startup.
• An "obsessed" problem-solving mindset, likely evidenced by building ambitious side projects just for fun.
• Desire to own the entire product lifecycle.

Company Description

Catalon - SF-based AI startup backed by Entrepreneur First.