Head of Engineer

Consumer AI Startup

Head of Engineering

Category: Consumer AI
Stage: Seed funded
Location: San Francisco, CA

About Mantle

We’re building an AI agent to help families support their aging parents (origin story here).

Over 40M “sandwich generation” Americans currently manage their parent’s affairs. Keeping mom/dad safe and supported is like a second job: it’s time-consuming, stressful and on top of their already busy lives. We believe that managing our parents’ affairs should feel under control, easier and lower stress.

Co-founded by serial entrepreneur partners including Ted Zagat, who sold his previous businesses to Slack (announcement here) and Google (Zagat restaurant guides). Currently in stealth mode.

The Role

We’re looking for a Head of Engineering to lead the technical future of Mantle. This is a foundational engineering and leadership role for someone who wants to build not just a product, but an engineering organization and culture from the ground up. You’ll work side by side with the founders to turn an ambitious vision into a product people love, while making the technical, hiring, and operating decisions that will shape the company for years to come.

This role is for a builder. Someone who can move between product instinct, architectural judgment, recruiting, and execution. Someone who is a true believer in the power of AI coding tools and agents Someone who knows how to move fast without creating unnecessary drag later. Someone who is excited to be hands-on in the early days, while also building the systems, team, and standards that let a company scale.

What You'll Build

• Our product from the ground up, including consumer web + mobile applications and the architecture and infrastructure that supports them

• A culture of urgency, ownership, sound judgment, and strong execution

• A recruiting process that helps us attract exceptional engineers

• The operating cadence for how engineering plans, prioritizes, communicates, and delivers

What We're Looking For

Required Experience

• 10+ years high performance software development experience

• Track record of shipping products end-to-end, from concept to production

• Background leading engineering teams and shipping real products in startup or high-growth environments

• Strong technical judgment, including the ability to make good tradeoffs under uncertainty

• Hands-on engineering ability and willingness to go deep

• Expert in hiring and developing strong technical talent

• Comfort operating in fast-moving environments with limited time, information, and resources

• Experience building production full stack applications with modern technologies

Ideal Background

• Early-stage startup experience

• Experience building web and mobile applications

• Strong product sense and a clear instinct for what matters in a startup

• Experience building an engineering function from the ground up

• Savvy using AI tools to increase engineering leverage

• Has partnered with founders on company priorities, roadmap, and execution

• Nice to have: experience with consumer products, AI-powered products, or FinTech

Who Thrives Here

• Builders: You love creating things from scratch and taking full ownership

• Founder-minded: You think like an owner and care deeply about company outcomes, not just engineering outputs

• Product-minded: You prioritize user impact, not just technical elegance

• AI-forward: You embrace modern AI development tools

• Strategic and pragmatic: You set direction and make practical decisions quickly

• Autonomous: You thrive with minimal direction

• Mission-driven: You care about what we’re building

• Scrappy: You operate well without a lot of structure or resources

• Great collaborator: You foster great working relationships

What You'll Get

• Meaningful work: Build a consumer product that will make a real difference in the lives of millions of families, with real technical ownership, fast pace, and huge financial potential

• Learning & growth: Opportunity to build a category-defining company from the ground up

• Real ownership: Your decisions will shape our product, business and culture

• Founding scope: Shape our engineering strategy, team, and culture from the beginning

• Partnership with founders: Work closely with Mantle’s co-founders, including involvement in the biggest decisions