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Build the AI layer for city and county government

We're a focused civic-technology team putting grounded, cited answers in the hands of planning staff and the public. We're small, in production, and hiring our founding team.

If you want the ownership of a founder with the focus of a specialist — one product, one mission, real users — this is the room to be in early.

Ground-floor ownership

You're not maintaining someone else's code — you're shaping the core architecture, the product, and the team. Founding-level scope and equity to match.

Work that matters

Make land-use regulation accessible and transparent for real cities and counties — and the residents and small businesses who deal with them.

Real users, real feedback

We're in production with live jurisdictions. You'll see your work reach planners and the public, and iterate on what they actually need.

Modern, AI-native stack

Grounded retrieval over real ordinance code, GIS integrations, and a fast modern front end — built to be accurate and auditable, not a demo.

Open roles

Founding Engineer

Full-timeRemote (US)Founding teamMeaningful equity
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Build the core of OpenCivic end-to-end — from the retrieval pipeline and LLM grounding that make every answer cite real ordinance code, to the GIS integrations and the product UI that county staff and residents rely on. You'll own large surface area and set the technical direction as one of our first hires.

What you'll do

  • Ship features end-to-end — backend services, the retrieval pipeline, and the web product county staff and residents use every day.
  • Push retrieval quality and groundedness so every answer is backed by a real, cited ordinance section — accuracy over hype.
  • Build and harden integrations: GIS & parcel data, permit systems, and the onboarding that brings a new jurisdiction live in weeks.
  • Set the engineering bar — architecture, standards, and culture — as one of the very first engineers.
  • Talk to real users (planners, developers, residents) and turn what you hear into product.

What we're looking for

  • 4+ years building and shipping production software, comfortable across backend and frontend.
  • Strong across a typed backend and a modern web front end — you can own a feature from the database to the UI.
  • Pragmatic about AI: you've shipped (or are eager to ship) LLM-powered features and care about correctness and defensibility.
  • High ownership, low ego — you thrive with ambiguity, a fast cadence, and a blank canvas.

Bonus points

GovTech / civic-tech experienceGIS or geospatial dataSearch & retrieval / applied AIEarly-stage startup track record
StackModern full-stack web, applied AI & retrieval, and geospatial data. We'll go deeper on the specifics together in the interview.

Don't see your exact role but think you'd be a fit? Reach out anyway — we're always glad to meet people who care about this problem.

Email us your backgroundLearn about OpenCivic