Founding Engineer at Plastic Labs

About the Role

We're searching for a founding engineer to help build the future of Plastic. As a key technical leader, you'll work directly with the CTO to architect and implement Honcho, our distributed user representation infrastructure, while co-creating the next generation of decentralized AI agent coordination systems.

This role requires a systems-oriented engineer who can architect, build, and maintain complex distributed systems from the ground up. You'll make critical technical decisions across the entire stack, from designing scalable distributed architectures to implementing robust backend systems and managing cloud deployments. You'll also help shape our technical strategy around distributed consensus, network reliability, and system scalability.

While distributed systems expertise is core to this role, we need a versatile technical leader who can fill gaps wherever needed. You'll be responsible for end-to-end ownership of projects, from high-level architecture to hands-on implementation. If you're excited by solving complex distributed systems challenges, can think deeply about system design, and want to help define fundamentally new technological paradigms, let's talk.

About You

• 3-4 years experience in similar roles or equivalent
• High cultural alignment with Plastic Labs' ethos
• NYC-based or open to NYC relocation
• All requirements listed for our Full-Stack Engineer role, plus...

Technical Expertise

• Deep experience with distributed systems design and implementation
• Strong background in containerization and orchestration (Kubernetes, Nomad, etc.)
• Experience building and maintaining microservice architectures
• Familiarity with distributed consensus protocols and eventual consistency
• Background in handling distributed state, caching, and data replication
• Experience with high-throughput, large-scale network systems

Leadership & Execution

• Adept at thinking globally & locally, at multiple layers of abstraction, & high-level synthesis
• Comfortable solving problems with high-agency, broad freedom, & significant responsibility
• Track record of managing projects & shipping/owning end-to-end
• Experience in system design, maintaining projects, deploying, optimization, architecture, & rapid iteration
• Strong DevSecOps background

Additional Qualities

• Up to date interest in OS AI community & LLM technologies
• Experience with cryptography, machine learning, or identity systems, a plus
• Complementary interests in cognitive sciences (linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, etc) or other adjacent interdisciplinary fields, a plus