Early Product Engineer

Join Hire Hangar and work with fast-growing global companies while building a long-term career.

Job Title| Early Product Engineer Location | On-Site — San Francisco, CA Time Zone | PST

Role Overview

We are seeking an Early Product Engineer to help build the core experience at a fast-moving AI video infrastructure startup. The company's first product turns prompts and documents into whiteboard-style explainer videos in seconds, with a bigger goal of making video generation as fast, cheap, and programmable as text generation is today. As one of the first engineering hires, you will own significant parts of the product — from how users interact with it to the systems running behind the scenes. This role suits someone who prefers building real things over managing narrow tickets, and who is energized by figuring out what to build, not just how. You will work side-by-side with the founder, shaping both the product and how the engineering team operates.

Key Responsibilities:

• Take product ideas from concept to shipped, working software
• Build and maintain APIs supporting core workflows like accounts, jobs, and billing
• Develop frontend interfaces that feel polished and dependable
• Improve day-to-day product experience: onboarding, usage clarity, account tools
• Partner with product, design, and customers to shape what gets built next
• Maintain code quality and documentation so others can build on your work

Required Qualifications:

• Proven full-stack experience building and shipping modern web applications
• Comfortable across typed languages, frontend frameworks, backend APIs, and cloud infrastructure
• Strong product sense — able to turn complex needs into simple, usable workflows
• Bias toward action and shipping, balanced with care for reliability
• Takes full ownership of problems, from definition to resolution
• Uses AI tools to increase speed, but drives problem-solving independently
• Must be willing to work on-site in San Francisco, CA

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in an early-stage or founding engineering capacity - Comfortable making decisions with incomplete information - History of working closely with founders or small, fast-moving teams

• Tools & Technology: - Modern frontend frameworks - Backend/API frameworks and databases - Cloud infrastructure and deployment tooling - AI-assisted development tools

• We connect top talent with vetted employers, competitive pay, and real growth opportunities.