Founding Engineer | Full Stack + AI - Spect AI
San Francisco, California
Spect AI /
Full Time /
On-site
Founding Engineer | Full Stack + AI
Mission & Opportunity
The construction industry is one of the largest in the world, worth over $12 trillion globally and accounting for 13% of global GDP, yet it remains one of the least digitized sectors. Despite advances in AI across finance, healthcare, and logistics, only 6% of construction firms use any AI-based tools today. Most workflows are still handled manually - reviewing PDFs, updating spreadsheets, and coordinating through email.
We believe this creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a category-defining AI company. AEC professionals spend over 40% of their time on repetitive, document-heavy tasks, and manual errors in specs, RFIs, and submittals contribute to $177 billion in annual rework costs in the U.S. alone. AI is now capable of understanding and reasoning over unstructured documents, creating a clear path to automate the most painful workflows in construction.
At Spect AI, we’re building the first AI-native platform that enables AEC teams to build and deploy intelligent automations without needing to write code or hire technical teams. Our mission is to unlock AI for an underserved yet foundational industry, and in doing so, reshape how construction projects are designed, reviewed, and delivered.
Company & Team
Spect AI is a venture-backed construction-tech startup spun out of Stanford University. Our platform is used by 10 leading construction and engineering firms to automate time-consuming document workflows and improve quality and efficiency on real-world projects.
We were founded by three graduate students at Stanford who bring a rare combination of deep AEC industry experience at firms like Turner Construction and technical expertise at top-tier software companies like Wealthfront. During our pre-seed raise, we were accepted into the Y Combinator S24 batch, but ultimately chose to partner with Unusual Ventures and StartX based on stronger alignment with our technical roadmap and long-term vision.
We move fast, thrive on hard technical problems, and care deeply about building tools that solve real customer pain. If you're excited to help bring the power of AI to one of the world’s largest and most foundational industries, we'd love to talk.
Role Description
- This is a full-time, on-site Software Engineer role at our office in Lower Pacific Heights, San Francisco
- Tackle complex technical challenges including unstructured document parsing, dynamic workflow orchestration, and multi-agent LLM pipelines
- Take ownership of key features end-to-end, from design to production
- Contribute meaningfully to product direction and roadmap alongside customers and founders
Qualifications
- 3+ years of software engineering experience
- Strong proficiency in full-stack development, with fluency in TypeScript (Next.js) and Python
- Experience designing and shipping production-grade software from scratch, including building APIs, data models, and frontend components
- Familiarity with LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini), including prompt design, evaluation, and integration into real products
- Comfortable working with SQL and relational databases (PostgreSQL)
- Degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent real-world experience
- Authorized to work in the US without visa sponsorship
Preferred but Not Required
- Experience with construction tech or document-heavy enterprise domains
- Interest in human-centered AI or no-code/low-code platforms
- Experience at B2B software startups
While the above criteria are ideal, we index heavily on slope, not y-intercept. If you’re smart, driven, and hungry, we’d love to talk!
We’re looking for a generalist who thrives in ambiguity, cares deeply about building for users, and can move between infrastructure, backend, and frontend as needed.
Competitive salary and meaningful equity provided
