Scan your resume against ATS criteria for this Founding Software Engineer role at Thirdlaw.
ThirdLaw is building the control layer for AI in the enterprise. As companies rush to adopt LLMs and AI agents, they face new safety, compliance, and operational risks that traditional observability tools were never designed to detect. Metrics like latency or cost don’t capture when a model makes a bad decision, leaks sensitive data, or behaves unpredictably.
We help IT and Security teams answer the foundational question:
—and take real-time action when it’s not.
Backed by top-tier venture firms and trusted by forward-looking enterprise design partners, we’re building the infrastructure to monitor, evaluate, and control AI behavior in real-world environments—
. If you're excited to build systems that help AI work as intended—and stop it when it doesn’t—we’d love to meet you.
You won’t just be piping logs or tuning models—you’ll architect systems that reconcile latency, correctness, and observability across distributed pipelines. You’ll be designing the nervous system of a new class of software—where AI Agents reason, act, and fail in unpredictable ways. If you're excited by AI and want to shape its safe deployment—not just watch from the sidelines—this is your opportunity.
Architect and evolve core backend systems—event ingestion, real-time risk evaluation, semantic search, and investigation-grade querying.
Design and optimize streaming data pipelines using Kafka, Redpanda, or similar technologies to support high-throughput, low-latency processing of LLM interactions.
Define and refine data models and schemas across structured (Postgres), analytical (ClickHouse), unstructured (S3), and vector (Qdrant) storage layers.
Identify architectural weaknesses and performance bottlenecks across ingest, indexing, and query layers; lead improvements to support scalability, correctness, and observability.
Implement data ingestion and transformation frameworks that support policy evaluation, semantic analysis, and dynamic response.
Optimize query performance, storage efficiency, and retrieval accuracy to support deep investigation and real-time enforcement.
Build and maintain backend APIs, monitoring infrastructure, and policy enforcement workflows that underpin the ThirdLaw platform.
You’ll be of the first backend hires, helping define not just what we build, but how we build it.
of backend or data engineering experience, ideally with a focus on distributed systems or streaming architectures.
and/or
; experienced with gRPC, REST, and working in Unix/Linux environments.
You’ve been the architect behind at least complex distributed system—ideally involving real-time data, search, or observability—and can explain your design decisions clearly.
Familiarity with schema evolution, ORMs, and data mapping strategies in evolving analytics systems.
Comfort working with Kubernetes and cloud-native services in AWS/GCP/Azure.
Ability to debug deeply, reason about performance tradeoffs, and own systems end to end.
Experience with semantic search, vector embeddings, AI agent infrastructure (e.g. LangChain, CrewAI, Autogen, etc.) and integrating LLM telemetry or foundation model outputs into observability pipelines.
Familiarity with OpenTelemetry, event trace modeling, Model Context Protocol (MCP), or real-time AI evaluation architectures.
Based in or willing to spend time in the San Francisco Bay Area for in-person collaboration.
Our team is small and focused, valuing autonomy and real impact over titles and management. We need strong technical skills, a proactive mindset, and clear written communication, as much of our work is asynchronous. If you're organized, take initiative, and want to work closely with customers to shape our products, you'll fit in well here.
Finally, we pay market cash compensation and generally above-market equity. The compensation package for this role is benchmarked using Carta Total Compensation and reflects real-time market data for our company’s size, this role’s level, and your geographic location. We have well-designed and generous benefits.
How to apply for Founding Software Engineer at Thirdlaw?
Click the "Apply on Company Website" button on this page to submit your application directly on the employer's official portal.
What is the salary for this role?
Salary details will be discussed during the interview.
What experience is required?
10+ years of experience is required.
Is this position still open?
Yes, currently active and accepting applications.
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