[Hiring] Founding Engineer @Sierra Studio

Role Description

We're hiring our first in-house engineer. We want someone who can open the codebase, test ideas themselves, and get us real answers fast. Most of your week will be spent writing code: prototypes, integrations, internal tools, and R&D experiments. The rest goes to being the technical reference inside the company.

• Technical validation: Answer questions like can we run this on-device? Is this open source speaker stack good enough?
• Build answers and bring back findings for product decisions.
• Remote role from Brazil with occasional travel to the US for hands-on work.
• Opportunity to evolve into technical leadership as the team grows.

What You'll Own

• Building:
  • Write production and prototype code across the stack.
  • Stand up MVPs and working demos fast, validating them with real data or users.
  • Build internal tools and lightweight automation.
  • Ship integrations with devices, sensors, and third-party services.
• R&D and Technical Validation:
  • Turn open technical questions into working evidence.
  • Run experiments end to end: scope, build, measure, and recommend.
  • Experiment with robotics hands-on.
  • Evaluate build vs. buy vs. integrate decisions.
• Being the Technical Voice in the Room:
  • Answer day-to-day technical questions from the CEO and business side.
  • Provide honest reads on feasibility, effort, and risk.
  • Push back on scope creep and unrealistic timelines.
  • Support in building technical narratives for decks and funding rounds.

Qualifications

• 5+ years building software professionally, with a track record of shipping products.
• Strong hands-on engineering skills across the stack.
• Practical AI/ML fluency with experience in LLMs, speech, or perception systems.
• Experience taking a product from zero to a working first version.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Autonomy and ownership in decision-making.
• Willing and able to travel to the US a couple of times a year.

Preferred

• Experience with robotics, humanoids, embodied AI, or IoT.
• Comfort with hardware-adjacent work: edge deployment, audio pipelines, sensors.
• Experience working alongside distributed engineering teams.
• Early-stage startup background.
• Product instinct with opinions on what should be built.
• Background in a technical discipline or equivalent self-taught depth.

What Success Looks Like

• Open technical questions get answered in days with working prototypes.
• Engineering partner moves faster due to unblocking and resolving unknowns.
• Robotics track moves from interesting to demonstrable.
• Leadership has a clear, evidence-based picture of technical possibilities and costs.
• CEO spends less time translating technology and more on business.
• Groundwork laid to bring on and lead additional engineers as the team grows.

A Note on Fit

This role suits someone who gets energy from variety and ambiguity. We value curiosity, ownership, humility, speed, and thoughtful debate. Strong opinions are welcome, backed by evidence and a willingness to adapt.

Compensation

$100k – $150k base, DOE, plus equity.