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Kinetic

Founding Engineer

New York, United States

Location
New York, United States
Work
On-site
Employment
Full-time
Level
Not stated
Function
Engineering
Pay
$160K – $200K a year
Posted
7 months ago

Pay and the market here

The top of this role’s range, $200K a year, is 17% below the median of $242K for engineering jobs in New York (middle half $200K – $300K, 3,178 jobs that state pay).

3,709 engineering jobs open in New York: 12% remote, 695 posted in the last 30 days.

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About the role

What is PayMe

PayMe helps everyday people find and claim money they are already owed, from class action settlements, mass arbitrations, unclaimed funds, and more.

It is a fast-growing consumer fintech product where product quality, speed, trust, and execution all matter at once.

What we need

PayMe needs a founding engineer who can take vague goals, figure out what matters, and implement basically anything needed to move the business forward.

This is a true full-stack builder role. We want someone with strong product judgment who can turn ambiguity into shipped product.

Who you are

  • Agentic engineer, meaning AI writes most code and you are genuinely more powerful because of it
  • Consumer product or fintech instincts are a plus
  • Fast-paced, high-agency experience, often in seed or series A environments
  • Comfortable shipping without a fully written PRD
  • Clear product taste and evidence of shipped work
  • Strong individual contributor, not an engineering manager profile

Why it's exciting

  • You will join a very small engineering team and help shape its next chapter
  • You will own meaningful product and engineering decisions early
  • You will work on a real consumer product with real scale and real urgency
  • You will work on a small team where good ideas ship fast

What you own

  • The highest-leverage product and engineering work across PayMe
  • Turning fuzzy problems into concrete plans, technical choices, and shipped product
  • Working shoulder-to-shoulder with product, growth, and design
  • Using AI heavily, because almost all code here is expected to be written with AI assistance
  • Helping set the engineering tone as one of the earliest dedicated engineers on PayMe

What success looks like

  • Important product work ships fast and actually changes outcomes
  • Engineering is no longer a bottleneck on PayMe’s highest-leverage work
  • The team can hand you vague goals and trust you to make strong product and technical decisions
  • You raise the bar on speed, ownership, and leverage

What you're not here to do

  • Be a narrow specialist who avoids product work
  • Wait for a perfect PRD before moving
  • Optimize for process over output
  • Act like a manager before proving you can build

Our process

  • 15 min screen with Kinetic's Lead Engineer
  • Half-day async paid project
  • Deep dive with PayMe's General Manager
  • Team conversations
  • Final in-office day

Target turnaround ~2 weeks from start to finish.

Source

Posted by Kinetic on their own hiring page, jobs.ashbyhq.com. OptiTalent shows it as published, read 07 Nov 2026 12:31 UTC; the original is the reference.

View the original ad ↗

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