Design and build backend systems that ingest procurement documents, develop models to parse requirements, and create pipelines to craft compliant proposal responses. Ship iteratively, prioritize world-class user experiences, and collaborate in-person at the San Francisco office.
About the Role
About Odo
Who You Are
Who You'll Work With
What You Bring
Our Engineering Culture
What You'll Gain
San Francisco, CA • Full Time • $140-180k Base • 0.5 - 1.5% Equity
As a Founding Backend Engineer at Odo, you’ll be building systems to help businesses find and win government contracts with AI. You'll ingest documents from countless disparate sources, develop models that parse requirements with nuanced understanding, and build pipelines to intelligently craft responses satisfying government criteria with our customers' unique capabilities and voice.
In the long term, this will bring order to the chaos of government procurement and reduce waste in how tax payer dollars are spent to serve the public good.
You must be located in/relocate to the Bay Area and be excited to work together in person in San Francisco.
Every year, U.S. state and local governments buy $1.5 trillion worth of goods and services from companies. However, the process that companies go through to find and win these contracts is extremely fragmented and manual today, leading to enormous waste and inefficiencies.
We imagine a different world: A world where companies can find and bid on government contracts 10x faster because AI automates the mundane workflow. A world where governments receive competitive bids from well-qualified companies, so they can spend less and purchase better products.
Since launching last summer as a part of Y Combinator, we already have 20+ customers - ranging from small boutique firms to enterprise companies - using Odo to identify and respond to public sector bids. Our customers are saving ~80% of time spent on the RFP process and even increasing their win rates! But this is only cracking the surface of what we can do.
- Hungry for impact, especially in the public sector
- Excited to solve hard technical problems at a fast pace
- Eager to apply AI in real-world use cases that drive positive outcomes
- Prioritizes delivering world-class user experiences over creating a perfectly architected system
- Respectful of diverse viewpoints and committed to collaborative decision-making without requiring consensus
Who You'll Work With
Yooni (Cofounder/CEO) - Yooni studied public policy at Princeton University and experienced the pain of public bids firsthand while working at Oliver Wyman. Yooni also worked at Robinhood as a product manager where she built world-class products like Robinhood Gold and fixed customer support post-Gamestop.
Andrew (Cofounder/CTO) - Andrew was a staff engineer at Robinhood working on both iOS and the full web stack. He spent many years freelancing where he developed outsized skill in taking projects from zero to one. He's also passionate about helping other engineers grow which is why he was a heavy contributor to Stack Overflow in the early days of Swift which led him to becoming the author of Learning Swift.
Must Haves
- At least 3 years of industry experience (more senior applicants also encouraged)
- Proficient in Python and/or TypeScript and experience with microservices development
- Ability to work quickly and ship iteratively with commitment to exceptional user experiences
Nice to Haves
- Experience with Django, React, Node, Websockets, and/or Yjs
- Experience with WebSockets and/or real-time applications
- Experience with AI (prompt engineering, RAG, fine-tuning, etc.)
- Experience managing complex backend pipelines/task queues
Our Engineering Culture
Our engineering culture balances innovation with pragmatic delivery. We're enthusiastic about exploring new tools and techniques while focusing relentlessly on customer value. We respect diverse perspectives and prioritize user value above technical perfection.
As one of our first engineers, you'll have a significant role in shaping this culture as we grow.
- The chance to make critical technical decisions that will shape our company for years
- First-hand experience seeing how your decisions play out as we scale
- Expertise in applying AI to solve complex business problems
- Ability to use the latest and greatest AI technologies to get your work done
- Competitive salary with significant equity – we want you to have real ownership
- The satisfaction of creating technology that makes delivering impactful public services more efficient
If you're excited about building something that matters at the intersection of AI, government, and business, we'd love to hear from you.
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