Founding Engineer - Automation Platform at Rocketable | Y Combinator

AboutWhat Happens at YC?ApplyYC Interview GuideFAQPeopleYC BlogCompaniesStartup DirectoryFounder DirectoryLaunch YCStartup JobsAll Jobs◦ Engineering◦ Operations◦ Marketing◦ SalesInternshipsStartup Job GuideYC Startup Jobs BlogFind a Co-FounderLibrarySAFEResourcesStartup SchoolNewsletterRequests for StartupsFor InvestorsVerify FoundersHacker NewsBookfaceOpen main menuApply for W2026 batch.ApplyRocketableThe AI Maximalist Software Holding CompanyFounding Engineer - Automation Platform$200K - $250K•1.00% - 4.00%•San Francisco, CA, US / San Rafael, CA, USJob typeFull-timeRoleEngineering, Full stackExperience6+ yearsVisaUS citizen/visa onlySkillsPrompt Engineering, Kubernetes, Python, TypeScript, Google Cloud, Distributed Systems, Machine Learning, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS)Connect directly with founders of the best YC-funded startups.Apply to role ›Alan WellsFounderAlan WellsFounderAbout the roleYou've been watching the AI capability curve. You've done the mental math. You know where this is going.
While most people are still debating whether LLMs can "really" reason, you're thinking about what happens when agents replace entire functions, when systems can debug themselves, when software can operate without humans touching it.
We're building that future. Right now. With real companies.
The Premise
Rocketable acquires profitable SaaS companies and transforms them into fully autonomous systems. No human operators. No engineering team shipping features. No support staff answering tickets. Just AI running the entire business.
This sounds crazy to most people, but the trajectory is obvious if you're paying attention. Within a few years, the question won't be "can AI run a software company?" It will be "why would a human?"
If you think we're wrong, don't apply. If you think we're early, let's talk.
The Role
You'll be the architect of the platform that makes this possible.

Starting point: A live SaaS company. Revenue. Customers. All the messy reality of a business that currently requires humans to operate.
Week 4: Your agent swarm handles first-line customer support. A meta-layer analyzes every human intervention—not just logging it, but learning from it. Why did a human need to step in? How do we eliminate that trigger?
Week 12: Hours of autonomous operation. Agents creating specialized sub-agents. The system building its own tools when it hits capability gaps. Performance metrics tracking toward superhuman baselines.
Beyond: Each new acquisition stress-tests your abstractions. Different tech stacks. Different domains. Different edge cases. The platform either generalizes or we start over and rebuild until it does.

The Filter
Apply if:

You believe full automation for software companies isn't just possible, it's inevitable (and you want to be the one building it).
You'd rather fail at something unprecedented than succeed at something incremental.
You want to work on the hardest version of the problem, not the safe version that gets you acqui-hired in 18 months.

Don't apply if:

You think "human in the loop" is a permanent design pattern, not a temporary constraint.
You're uncomfortable with the societal implications of what we're building. (We think about them. We just don't let them paralyze us.)
You're optimizing for a good story for your next job, not for a decade of building something durable.

Technical Requirements
This isn't a research role. You need to ship production systems.

Systems (5+ years): You've scaled production systems to 100K+ DAU. You understand distributed architectures deeply (microservices, event-driven systems, message queues). Full-stack fluency from frontend to infrastructure. TypeScript and Python preferred.
AI/ML: Hands-on LLM integration (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google). You treat prompt and context engineering as an engineering discipline with version control, evals, and systematic optimization. You've built systems to measure AI performance. Bonus points for self-improving systems, RL, RLHF.
Infrastructure: Kubernetes. Docker with real security understanding. Infrastructure as Code. Cloud platforms (GCP or AWS preferred). CI/CD that doesn't suck. Observability that helps you debug distributed systems. Security fundamentals.

The Setup

Founder: Alan Wells. Ex-Cruise, ex-Uber ATG. 10+ years of experience building AI/ML products that sense, predict, and act in mission-critical applications.
Funding: $6.5M seed from Y Combinator, True Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Indie.vc, and others. Capital for 3+ acquisitions.
Team philosophy: Small by design. In-person 5 days/week (San Francisco default, Marin County possible).

The Bet
Rocketable is a bet that AI capabilities will continue accelerating. That autonomous systems will outperform human-operated ones. That the companies who figure this out first will have a compounding advantage.
We might be wrong. But if we're right, you'll have built the infrastructure that runs a new kind of company. This is the highest-leverage engineering work that exists right now.
That's the trade. Interested? Apply here.
More about Rocketable:

The Rocketable Origin Story (video interview - https://rocketable.substack.com/p/the-rocketable-origin-story)
The Rocketable Manifesto (https://rocketable.substack.com/p/the-rocketable-manifesto)
WTF is an AI maximalist software holding company? (https://rocketable.substack.com/p/wtf-is-an-ai-maximalist-software)

About the interview
Intro call with me (30 mins)
System design interview (90 min) - prompt provided in advance.
Background check
Paid trial project (20-40 hours)
Reference interviews - 3 contacts for each of your prior roles. For experienced candidates, this will often require 10+ reference calls. This is not a box checking exercise.
Offer

About RocketableRocketable is an AI powered software holding company backed by Y Combinator, True Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, and others. We specialize in acquiring existing SaaS businesses and automation operations with AI.
The end goal: a large portfolio of wildly profitable software products, operated at performance levels humans simply cannot achieve, enabled by intelligence that is distributed, scalable, and self-improving.
RocketableFounded:2023Batch:W25Team Size:2Status:Active FoundersAlan Wells FounderAlan Wells FounderFooterY CombinatorProgramsYC ProgramStartup SchoolWork at a StartupCo-Founder MatchingCompanyYC BlogContactPressPeopleCareersPrivacy PolicyNotice at CollectionSecurityTerms of UseResourcesStartup DirectoryStartup LibraryInvestorsSAFEHacker NewsLaunch YCYC DealsMake something people want.ApplyTwitterTwitterFacebookFacebookInstagramInstagramLinkedInLinkedInYoutubeYouTube© 2025 Y Combinator

This document outlines the Founding Engineer – Automation Platform role at Rocketable, an AI-maximalist software holding company backed by Y Combinator and several venture capital firms. The core premise of Rocketable is to transform profitable SaaS companies into fully autonomous systems, driven by AI agents, eliminating the need for human operators, engineering teams, or support staff. The company is betting on the continued acceleration of AI capabilities and the eventual outperformance of autonomous systems compared to human-operated ones, with the goal of building a large portfolio of high-performing, AI-driven software products.

The role itself is heavily focused on designing and building the platform that enables this transformation. Starting with a live SaaS company with existing revenue and customers, the candidate will be responsible for establishing an agent swarm capable of handling first-line customer support, progressing to autonomous operations with hours of operation and the creation of specialized sub-agents. The platform’s architecture will need to support adaptability across different tech stacks, domains and edge cases, continually evaluating and potentially rebuilding systems to ensure peak performance.

Critical technical skills demanded include 5+ years of experience scaling production systems to 100K+ daily active users (DAU), deep understanding of distributed architectures (microservices, event-driven systems, message queues), full-stack fluency across the technology stack – specifically with TypeScript and Python preferred – substantial experience with Large Language Models (LLMs) including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, and proficiency in Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud platforms (GCP or AWS).

The company’s founder, Alan Wells, brings 10+ years of experience in building AI/ML products for mission-critical applications, having previously worked at Cruise and Uber ATG. The company has secured $6.5M in seed funding from Y Combinator and other investors, with plans for 3+ acquisitions. The team philosophy is characterized by being "small by design," working in person for 5 days a week, and the role’s interview process is extensive, involving a 30-minute introductory call, a 90-minute system design interview, a paid trial project (20-40 hours), and numerous reference calls.

Rocketable's ambition is to build a software holding company with a wildly profitable portfolio of AI-driven software products, operating at performance levels humans cannot achieve. The company’s core strategy centers around leveraging the ability of AI to continuously optimize and scale operations, with the intent of establishing a considerable competitive advantage through this approach. The entire process is framed as a significant “leveraged engineering work,” representing a high-impact opportunity for a candidate willing to take on an unprecedented challenge.