Founding data engineer

NQB8 is an incubator building ambitious companies. We’re currently working on a company that is reinventing the data engineering stack to make world-class infrastructure accessible to every team. We’re building an AI-native platform that combines human-level understanding with scalable, production-grade pipelines.

We’re looking for a Founding Data Engineer to help us build it from the ground up.

About You

• You’re in the top 10% of engineers you’ve ever worked with.
• You have a bias for action and love shipping MVPs fast.
• You’ve been a founding engineer or the go-to backend/data person on small, elite teams.
• You thrive in ambiguity. You ask smart questions and figure out the rest.
• You care about infrastructure, orchestration, and scale — but not in an over-engineered way.
• You can go deep on AI/LLMs, but you’re pragmatic about what’s useful in production.
• You value clarity in thought and communication.
• You want to work with A-players, and only A-players.
• You’ve always wanted to start a company.

What You’ll Do

• Own the backend and data architecture from day zero
• Design and build modular, auditable data pipelines (ingest → clean → dedupe → validate → deliver)
• Integrate LLMs, agents, and traditional pipeline logic to create a hybrid AI/data engineering stack
• Build tools for users to interact via API, Slack, or natural language — and return production-grade results
• Develop internal agent frameworks to automate repeatable data engineering workflows
• Collaborate directly with users to define product behavior and drive roadmap
• Help recruit and grow an exceptional technical team

What You’ve Done

You don’t need all of these — but the right candidate will recognize themselves in many:

• Designed and shipped complex data pipelines using tools like Spark, Airflow, Dask, or Prefect
• Built and maintained backend systems in Python, Scala, or Java
• Worked with modern cloud infrastructure (AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, Lambda)
• Built systems for entity resolution, data normalization, or fuzzy matching at scale
• Integrated LLMs or agent frameworks into real products (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, etc.)
• Thrived in fast-moving, zero-to-one environments with minimal handholding
• Hold a strong engineering foundation (CS degree or equivalent experience)

Bonus Points

• You’ve worked on data quality, observability, or anomaly detection systems
• You’ve built customer-facing APIs with high performance requirements
• You’ve architected multi-tenant or self-serve SaaS systems
• You’re obsessed with developer experience
• You have an entrepreneurial mindset and may want to found your own startup someday

Why Join Us

• You’ll shape the architecture, product, and culture from day one
• You’ll solve problems that are painful and pervasive across every data-driven business
• You’ll work with elite builders who care deeply about velocity, quality, and long-term impact
• You’ll have massive ownership and real equity in what we’re building