Founding AI Engineer

About the Role Paratus is building the applied AI platform that keeps military units ready for their most urgent missions. We turn fragmented data and organizational processes into executable knowledge that enables AI to run high-stakes, mission-critical work. We’re already deployed with multiple DoD customers and backed by the Air Force’s innovation arm and the Pentagon’s Chief Data and AI Office. Additionally, we’ve raised $2.5M+ in pre-seed funding from top tier venture capital firms who were early investors in companies like Palantir, Hermeus, and OpenGov. We’re hiring a founding AI engineer who seeks early-stage ownership and is eager to work directly with service members on problems that matter. In this role, you’ll work side-by-side with the founders to radically transform how military teams prepare for urgent, global missions. As a founding engineer, you’ll own the full lifecycle of Paratus’ AI systems - from deeply understanding user needs, to shaping product strategy, to launching reliable agents that service members utilize every day. You’ll help define how we build AI for high-stakes environments, while playing a foundational role in our engineering culture and broader company decisions. If you’re excited to work alongside customers at military bases and turn real operational problems into deployed AI systems, this role is a strong fit.

About Paratus Today, service members juggle hundreds of readiness requirements across legacy systems, causing knowledge gaps, mission risk, and persistent admin burdens. Paratus replaces this with an AI orchestration layer that automates workflows, accelerates decision speed, and preserves expert knowledge over time. We’re trusted by the highest tempo military units to keep their teams ready and help them deploy with confidence. Our service members deserve to focus on high value training and advancing the national security mission – not waste hours chasing down paperwork and navigating outdated systems. Paratus is bringing this vision to life. Join us in building the future of readiness for those who protect and serve.

Who you are

• Prioritize driving impact for our service members
• Low ego, high attention to detail, and willing to learn
• Work in person at our office in downtown San Francisco
• Travel to military bases (~1x/month) to translate user needs into code
• US citizenship

Technical Requirements

• Experience building production AI agents that perform accurately at scale
• Strong software engineering fundamentals and a track record of owning systems end to end
• Experience designing reliable AI workflows, including tool use, structured outputs, human-in-the-loop review, and evaluation
• Experience with advanced retrieval techniques, including hybrid search, semantic search, and graph-based retrieval
• Experience with Typescript and full stack web frameworks (Next, Express)

Bonus if you have

• Experience building eval datasets or frameworks to measure and improve the performance of AI systems
• Familiarity with knowledge graphs, embeddings, vector databases, and other approaches to representing and retrieving information for AI agents
• You have taste and strong opinions on model and agent behaviors. You stay up-to-date and informed on emerging research and industry trends
• Comfortable with ambiguity and a fast-changing product direction
• Experience in defense, government, healthcare or another regulated / mission-critical domain
• Active US security clearance is a plus

Benefits

• Salary of $170-$210k & .5%-1.2% equity
• Competitive health benefits
• 401(k)
• Free dinners

Contact Us – [email protected]

Paratus is an Equal Opportunity Employer, meaning that we do not discriminate based upon race, religion, national origin, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, or any other protected class.