Founding AI Engineer

Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Role Type: Full-Time

Compensation: Meaningful equity, competitive salary

Sector: Applied AI / Software / AI-Native Services / Energy Infrastructure / Climate Tech / Industrials / Financial Software / Critical Industries

Daylight Infrastructure powers intelligence and industry, faster and cleaner. We’re building an AI platform to accelerate the buildout of GWs of energy for compute. We help hyperscalers, data center developers, real estate developers, and energy suppliers advance powered lands.

Power is the primary constraint to the AI buildout.

We’re solving the surge of power demand from data centers by making it faster to develop energy infrastructure. We already have a strong pipeline of customers across real estate developers and large enterprises.

Daylight is backed by leading investors in energy, critical infrastructure, and climate. The team has decades of expertise in energy infrastructure development and software. We’re hiring a founding AI engineer to build the core intelligence layer of our product.

• Climate impact: Industrial decarbonization is responsible for over one-third of global emissions, and energy systems are the shared constraint underneath it. Daylight is going after the intersection: powering industry and data centers with clean, reliable electricity.

• True founding ownership: This is a founding engineering role with high leverage. You will shape what we build and how we build it.

• Work on the real constraint: Power is the binding constraint for data centers today. You’ll build the tooling that turns messy infrastructure reality into decision-grade diligence.

• World class backers and community: We’re backed by leading climate investors and advised by individuals from the DOE and leading energy infrastructure investment firms.

• Strong Early Traction: We’ve been paid by leading real estate developers and are integrated in leading data center developers and clean energy projects deals worth $500M+.

This is a true founding role. You will shape Daylight’s technical direction, set the standards for how we build, and help lay the foundations for a world-class engineering organization.

You’ll work directly with the founder to automate structured processes, extract insights from messy data and compliance documents, and support smarter purchasing decisions.

We’re seeking strong GenAI/agent systems experience (LLM orchestration, retrieval, tool use) and solid backend skills (Python/TypeScript, APIs, data pipelines, security). You will translate energy procurement workflows into usable software, prototype quickly, and ship to production.

You work autonomously, prioritize ruthlessly, set clear milestones, and bring a calm, analytical, low-ego presence. Ready for founding team level responsibility and startup volatility.

• Own technical strategy and execution: Set architecture and technical plan (data model, AI systems, infra, security), write production code, and set the quality bar (tests, reviews, observability).

• Build AI agents: Design and ship agentic workflows that enable top datacenter developers to contract, diligence, and close 10 GWs of sites, and $500 million contracts faster than ever before

• Build software features end-to-end: Turn procurement and project finance workflows into usable product; be forward-deployed with users and iterate in real time.

• Build data and geospatial pipelines: ingest and enrich the datasets behind grid access, substations, transmission, and land availability.

• Drive PMF through engineering: Work closely with the founder to find PMF through user conversations and rapid iteration.

• You’ve shipped AI agent systems to real users, with hands-on experience building tool use, retrieval, structured memory, evals and harnesses. You can diagnose failures and improve reliability, alongside strong backend skills in Python/TypeScript, APIs and security.

• Strong product engineer: you take work end to end, make good tradeoffs, and turn real customer workflows into product people use.

• You set direction and raise the bar - technical leadership and mentorship as the team grows.

• Deeply motivated by climate impact and building from zero to one - you go down rabbit holes until you understand the problem better than anyone else.

• Power markets knowledge

• AWS/GCP experience

• Enjoys team hikes and bike rides :)

You will thrive at Daylight if you:

• Exhibit high agency and take ownership end-to-end.

• Are highly collaborative and bring a low-ego, team-first approach.

• Bring compassion and deep care for the people you work with, and help create a supportive, high-trust community.

• Have real comfort with ambiguity, and can create structure where none exists.

📬 Apply by November 10th. Referred candidates will be prioritized. If you know someone at Daylight or in our community please mention them in your application.

Email [email protected] if you have any questions.