Coastal Recruiting - Engineering Candidate Spotlight, Sept 27

0-1 Fullstack, Backend, AI/ML engineers - SF/NYC

Author

David Friedman
September 27, 2024

Hey Everyone - David here from Coastal Recruiting… Happy Friday!

Welcome to Coastal Recruiting’s weekly candidate spotlight - where we highlight candidates in SF and NYC, who are looking for their next startup opportunity. As reminder, we’re a boutique startup recruitment agency representing stellar engineering talent in SF + NYC, across the stack.

Having helped place numerous candidates across a number of startups, we’re able to pattern match trends, traits and tactics of the most efficient interview processes that have the highest likelihood of closing candidates (the damn hard part).

One easy thing startups can implement during their interview process? Educate candidates on the product, high level roadmap, and engineering growth plans.

Why? Time and time again, candidates clear references and get badass offers — but have 0 idea what the product actually is or what the roadmap looks like (so they can contextualize what their role / scope will be).

Switching to a new role / company can be an emotionally charged decision, and thoroughly arming candidates with concrete data points, facts + figures helps minimize the unknowns and enables them to make an informed decision.

Each week we highlight the profiles of the top talent we’re working with — with a blend between NYC and SF. If any of the below profiles catch your eye, don’t hesitate to reply directly to this email.

  1. Back End/Infra/ML Engineer (SF)

    • Experienced engineer with a background at Airtable, Apple, and as a Founding Engineer at Reflex; currently at Redpanda Data, he misses the pace of early-stage startups and is seeking an individual contributor (IC) role that allows for hands-on coding in backend engineering, infrastructure, and ML infrastructure.

    • Proven track record in building core infrastructure and cloud platforms from scratch, with recent experience at Outerbounds developing an enterprise ML infrastructure product focused on multi-cloud capabilities and full lifecycle technical leadership.

    • Proficient in Python, Golang, TypeScript, Java, and C++, with expertise in technologies like Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS, and Docker; he prefers in-person roles in the San Francisco area and values strong engineering cultures, particularly in the dev tools space.

  2. Sr. Front End/Full Stack Engineer (SF)

    • Driven engineer with over 3 years of experience at Stripe, currently in a Senior Frontend role and serving as Engineering Lead on the Express Checkout team; seeking early-stage startup opportunities to gain ownership and help scale meaningful products.

    • Holds a BS in Computer Science with Highest Honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; led the development of a one-click checkout solution now used by over 500 e-commerce platforms, managing a cross-functional team for seamless integration.

    • Experienced in enhancing payment processing tools with support for multiple methods and developing features for internal recruiting platforms, combining frontend (React) and backend skills; open to full-stack roles but with a strong frontend focus; also a potential fit for FDE role.

  3. Back End/Infra Engineer (SF)

    • Exceptional engineer who completed college at UC Berkeley in just three years; started his career at Microsoft before joining Clumio during their Series C, where he built multiple products from 0-1 and contributed significantly as an individual contributor.

    • At Clumio, he worked on both the Protect and Discover products, focusing on their analytics engine, scalability challenges, and feature requests; co-led the main product while managing the Oracle/Hana product and overseeing ingestion and host management.

    • Open to backend or infrastructure roles, he has a keen interest in machine learning and is motivated to tackle challenging technical problems, gain diverse experiences, and work across different projects and teams.

  4. Back End/Infra Engineer (NYC)

    • He is an experienced 0-1 builder with a strong background in early-stage companies, serving as the first backend hire at a Robust Intelligence, where he set up and architected the company’s infrastructure and microservices architecture as they grew to over 50 employees.

    • He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and has extensive expertise in full-stack development and DevOps, proficient in multiple programming languages (Python, Go, Java, TypeScript) and cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), as well as tools like Kubernetes, Docker, and Terraform.

    • Recently, at a seed-stage AI/ML startup, he optimized AI/ML infrastructure by migrating model inference to self-hosted Ray clusters, significantly improving cost-efficiency and reducing latency.

  5. Back End/Data Engineer (NYC)

    • Energetic engineer with a degree from Waterloo and experience at Verkada and Pace, where he was an early engineer; after Pace's shutdown, he is now seeking new opportunities and values team dynamics and mission-driven work.

    • Strong expertise in backend and data engineering, with experience in REST APIs, data integration, ingestion, and building data pipelines; collaborated with analytics teams to optimize data warehouses while focusing on backend solutions.

    • Motivated to join a high-energy team of passionate individuals in a scaling environment, where he can contribute to growth and development.

  6. AI/ML Engineer (NYC)

    • UC Berkeley graduate with a concentration in Machine Learning, currently part of a small research team focused on building multilingual foundational models for enterprise applications, including chatbots and compute solutions for EMEA/APAC markets.

    • Experienced in foundational model training, including GPU clusters, distributed training, and reinforcement learning, he has recently shifted to 0-1 building of a guardrail product to ensure safety and quality in AI deployments for external customers.

    • Seeking a role with significant impact on product development that combines research (40%), engineering (30%), and team management (30%); prefers a hybrid or in-person work environment to enhance collaboration, with an interest in upward mobility toward technical leadership.

Give me a shout if any of the profiles catch your eye!

P.S. Coastal Recruiting helps the top 1% of founders hire 0-1 engineers in SF + NYC