# Founding Engineer at Aqua

- Company: Aqua (YC S21)
- What the company does: The AI-Native Turnkey Alternative Investment Platform (TAIP). Backed by Y Combinator.
- Company website: https://www.investwithaqua.com
- Type: Startups (AI role)
- Level: Mid level
- Location: New York, NY, US
- Work setup: On-site
- Pay: $100K to $160K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2025-10-09
- Apply by: 2026-10-08
- Apply: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/aqua/jobs/lkRXWZR-founding-engineer
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/aqua-founding-engineer/

## About the role

This is not a clean-sheet build. We operate a production platform handling real money for institutional clients. The interesting engineering problems come from that constraint — you have to build fast and get it right, because the cost of getting it wrong is measured in regulatory risk and real dollars.

## What they're looking for

- You've built and shipped systems that handle real money, real data, or real compliance constraints — not just prototypes
- You treat testing, validation, and edge case handling as part of the work, not a separate phase someone else does
- You've operated in an environment where you had to figure out the "what" and the "how," not just execute against a spec
- You're comfortable working across backend systems, data pipelines, and infrastructure — and you can pick up new tools and frameworks fast when the problem demands it
- You've worked with or built LLM-powered applications and understand both the potential and the failure modes
- You'd rather own a hard problem at a small company than be a cog in a machine at a big one

Tags: Engineering