Founding AI / Full-Stack Engineer

About the role

POLKA, part of The Polka Dot Company, is an AI company building an AI research and intelligence platform called POLKA, which includes Scout for exploring questions and Atlas for deeper research. It is hiring a full-time remote Founding AI / Full-Stack Engineer to design, develop and maintain the end-to-end web applications powering the platform. The engineer works directly with the founder and product lead, helping define engineering best practices, influence the roadmap and own the technical architecture.

Key responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the frontend, backend, APIs, databases and core application infrastructure of POLKA.
• Integrate AI capabilities by working with language models and AI APIs to build research and intelligence workflows.
• Implement search, information retrieval, source discovery, citation handling and evidence-based synthesis.
• Design and improve multi-step research tasks, structured outputs and model responses.
• Make practical decisions on frameworks, infrastructure, integrations, scalability, security and maintainability.
• Test AI outputs, investigate failure cases and help set measurable quality standards.
• Work closely with the founder to turn product requirements and designs into working features, shipping iterative improvements while managing technical risk.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience in early-stage or startup environments, with autonomy and ownership.
• Comfort with cloud infrastructure, deployment pipelines, modern development tools and version control.
• Ability to collaborate effectively in a remote environment with product and design partners.
• No need to be a machine-learning researcher; the focus is applying existing AI technologies to build a reliable product.

Required skills

• Full-stack development and software development experience.
• Back-end development, including designing APIs, data models and scalable services.
• Front-end development with modern frameworks and CSS.
• Background with AI or machine learning–driven products, or strong ability to learn quickly.

To apply, send your CV or LinkedIn profile, links to applications, projects or GitHub repositories, a short note about an AI-powered application you have built or would build, and your preferred engagement arrangement and availability.