This role is for individuals with a missionary mindset.
Vanamonde is a research-driven infrastructure startup, not a product-driven.
Please Note
This is an early-stage, pre-funding Founding Engineer opportunity.
Vanamonde is currently bootstrapped and operating before Seed financing. Salary compensation begins after the company secures funding. At that stage, founding engineers will transition into paid full-time roles, and eligible founding members may enter formal equity discussions and agreements subject to company approval and applicable legal terms.
Any equity range or discussion during the recruitment process is indicative only and does not constitute a grant, promise, or verbal commitment.
Participation in weekly team syncs is optional. These sessions are primarily used to stay aligned on technical progress, research, and current engineering challenges.
About Vanamonde
Vanamonde is building AI Agent-native software abstraction layer infrastructure at the computational layer.
Our work explores a different fundamental unit of software: composable computational capabilities that can be discovered, acquired, composed, and transformed by intelligent systems rather than operated solely through conventional applications.
Two core systems define our current technical work:
SIAS (Semantic Interaction Asset System) is an AI Agent access and procurement layer for programmable capabilities represented as assets. It enables agents to discover, procure, and compose pre-existing computational functions.
CSTG (Composable State Transition Graph) is the computational layer that defines how constrained capabilities and state transitions can be composed to produce new computational states.
Our SIAS prototype is complete. We are currently defining and implementing the minimum viable prototype of CSTG.
Data sovereignty is a core system principle.
Vanamonde is currently bootstrapped and preparing for Seed financing while continuing technical development, research, and prototype validation.
The Opportunity
We are looking for a Founding Engineer to work directly on Vanamonde's core computational architecture.
This is not a conventional product engineering role. The work is research-driven and system-level, with a strong emphasis on reasoning about architecture, state, computation, composability, and implementation under incomplete specifications.
You will work closely with the founding team to help define and implement the technical foundations of CSTG and the broader Vanamonde system.
You will not simply be implementing predefined product requirements. You will be contributing to the definition of the system itself.
Team Culture & Growth
Vanamonde operates with high ownership and minimal bureaucracy.
We evaluate technical impact and judgment rather than hours worked. Engineers are expected to reason independently, move decisively, and maintain system integrity under ambiguity.
Experimentation is encouraged, but correctness, composability, and architectural integrity are first-order constraints.
Early engineers have direct influence over the technical foundation of the system and the opportunity to grow with the scope of the architecture they help create.
Your Responsibilities
Design and implement system-level logic involving state, computation, data flow, and modular capabilities
Work directly on the CSTG minimum viable prototype and its underlying computational logic
Design APIs, services, and supporting infrastructure that interact with blockchain and stateful system components
Translate architectural concepts into working technical prototypes and production-oriented system components
Contribute across backend, infrastructure, protocol, and frontend layers when required by the system
Establish engineering standards for code quality, testing, reliability, and maintainability
Investigate technical questions where the correct architecture is not yet known
Work closely with the founding team to refine system definitions and evaluate architectural trade-offs
What We're Looking For
Required
Strong software engineering fundamentals and solid system design ability
Experience building and maintaining non-trivial software systems
Ability to reason about system architecture, state, data flow, and component interactions
Ability to work independently in environments where requirements and implementation paths are not fully defined
Strong ownership and willingness to take responsibility for problems beyond a narrowly defined task
Ability to understand unfamiliar technical concepts quickly and turn them into working implementations
Relevant Technical Experience
Experience in one or more of the following areas is valuable:
Backend or infrastructure engineering
Distributed systems
Protocol or blockchain engineering
Stateful or event-driven systems
APIs, services, and data-intensive systems
Smart contracts, Ethereum, L2s, Cosmos, or related ecosystems
AI systems, agent infrastructure, or tool integration
Other systems-oriented or research-driven engineering work
Experience in other technically demanding environments may also be relevant. We care more about engineering depth, systems thinking, and the ability to learn than about matching a specific technology checklist.
Compensation & Benefits
Salary begins after the company secures funding.
Upon funding, the intended transition is to a full-time paid engineering role with competitive compensation.
Eligible founding engineers may also enter formal equity discussions and agreements after financing, subject to company approval and applicable legal terms.
Remote work, PTO, and holidays will apply under the formal employment arrangement established after funding.
Ready to Work at the Computational Layer?
Join Vanamonde at an early stage and contribute directly to the development of a new computational architecture.
This is an opportunity for engineers who want to work beyond conventional application development and participate in defining how software capabilities can be represented, composed, and transformed for an era of autonomous intelligence.
Message from Founder Raphael
Raphael likens our journey to navigating the Grand Line, a vast and challenging ocean. If you are ready for a bold adventure and want to help shape the future of new computation, come aboard.