Founding Engineer (AI)

Company Description

At Optima.ai, we're crafting intelligent wealth for the new India. We're not here to just digitalize wealth management. We're here to redefine what intelligent wealth feels like calm, clear, and crafted from first principles.

How are we different

1) Intelligence

Institutional-grade AI and quantitative research carefully crafted for human context

2) Personalization

Each portfolio is built from scratch engineered to dynamically evolve with you

3) Experience

Your thoughts to our actions a wealth experience so delightful it will help you sleep better

4) Safety

Unmatched transparency and security well beyond just compliance requirements

Compensation Highlights

• Top-of-market cash compensation (50L - 1Cr PA)
• Free access to our employee-only investment fund
• Health insurance

Role Description

We are recruiting a generalist Founding Engineer (Backend) to build our core infrastructure- high-performance, reliable, and centered on rapid product evolution:

• Take end-to-end ownership of backend systems, including the design, implementation, and operation of secure, scalable, and compliant services that form the backbone of the platform
• Contribute across the stack and collaborate with teams across function areas to rapidly prototype, iterate, and deploy capabilities that deliver exceptional user experiences and measurable business impact
• Stay on top of the fast-evolving landscape in AI-assisted development, experimenting with new capabilities that can enhance user experience, internal workflows, and development velocity
• As an early team member, the Employee is expected to help institutionalise a culture of high performance, velocity, and accountability; take broad ownership; and build organisational capability through mentoring, process creation, and cross-functional problem solving

Preferred Background

• Experience: 4+ years in software engineering (especially as a Founding Engineer or Co-Founder)
• Education: Strong academic background from premier institutions
• Prior Roles: Proven zero-to-one experience of quickly shipping high-quality products in fintech/wealthtech startups
• Mindset: User empathy, relentless iterations, AI-native productivity, end-to-end ownership, and bias toward shipping
• Bonus: Experience building AI agents
• Or something untraditional that trumps all of the above

Culture Code

Fulfilment in your life's best work

High talent density

A lean team of exceptional people moves faster and solves unstructured problems more effectively.

Velocity over perfection

We learn and iterate fast because we value compounding improvement more than immaculate beginnings.

First-principles thinking

Dare to make contrarian moves backed by fundamentals, and decide with clear intent because each release is a hypothesis.

Client obsession

There is no such thing as client error only design error; so cultivate deep empathy and respect worthy of the client's trust.

Honesty over niceness

Say what people need to hear, not what they want to hear, and actively seek feedback.

Craft as character

What we build ends up building us, and reflects who we are, so treat excellence as a habit.

Own the outcome

We don't need heroes we need people who don't wait for heroes; use your freedom to act in Optima's best interest and keep moving.

Simplify to evolve

Relentlessly distil complexity to bring clarity to our thinking, operations, and solutions for clients.

Contact

Share your resume and any relevant work (code, links, descriptions) directly with us at [Confidential Information].