# Founding Engineer at Kinetic

Founding Engineer at Kinetic in New York. On-site, full-time, paying $160k–$200k. Posted April 7, 2026.

- Company: Kinetic
- Location: New York
- Workplace: On-site
- Job type: Full-time
- Pay: $160k–$200k
- Posted: 2026-04-07
- Apply: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kinetic/4836e73e-c9f9-4604-99cd-a80056f47ed1/application
- Source: https://jobmagic.ai/jobs/founding-engineer-kinetic-4f2a0x

## Description

### What is PayMe

PayMe helps everyday people find and claim money they are already owed, from class action settlements, mass arbitrations, unclaimed funds, and more.
It is a fast-growing consumer fintech product where product quality, speed, trust, and execution all matter at once.

### What we need

PayMe needs a founding engineer who can take vague goals, figure out what matters, and implement basically anything needed to move the business forward.
This is a true full-stack builder role. We want someone with strong product judgment who can turn ambiguity into shipped product.

### Who you are

- Agentic engineer, meaning AI writes most code and you are genuinely more powerful because of it

- Consumer product or fintech instincts are a plus

- Fast-paced, high-agency experience, often in seed or series A environments

- Comfortable shipping without a fully written PRD

- Clear product taste and evidence of shipped work

- Strong individual contributor, not an engineering manager profile

### Why it's exciting

- You will join a very small engineering team and help shape its next chapter

- You will own meaningful product and engineering decisions early

- You will work on a real consumer product with real scale and real urgency

- You will work on a small team where good ideas ship fast

### What you own

- The highest-leverage product and engineering work across PayMe

- Turning fuzzy problems into concrete plans, technical choices, and shipped product

- Working shoulder-to-shoulder with product, growth, and design

- Using AI heavily, because almost all code here is expected to be written with AI assistance

- Helping set the engineering tone as one of the earliest dedicated engineers on PayMe

### What success looks like

- Important product work ships fast and actually changes outcomes

- Engineering is no longer a bottleneck on PayMe’s highest-leverage work

- The team can hand you vague goals and trust you to make strong product and technical decisions

- You raise the bar on speed, ownership, and leverage

### What you're *not* here to do

- Be a narrow specialist who avoids product work

- Wait for a perfect PRD before moving

- Optimize for process over output

- Act like a manager before proving you can build

### Our process

- 15 min screen with Kinetic's Lead Engineer

- Half-day async paid project

- Deep dive with PayMe's General Manager

- Team conversations

- Final in-office day

Target turnaround ~2 weeks from start to finish.