Company Description:

18startup is a vibrant community designed to empower aspiring entrepreneurs by guiding them to turn innovative ideas into reality. Focused on fostering a dynamic ecosystem, we bring together mentors, investors, and entrepreneurs to share expertise, identify opportunities, and spark collaboration. With a unique mix of mentorship, experiential learning, and networking opportunities, 18startup equips its members with the knowledge and connections they need to build successful startups.

Our mission is to create a supportive environment where innovation thrives, and bold visions are realized, paving the way for startup success.

Role Description:

We're hiring a Founding Engineer to take complete ownership of technology and product at 18startup.

Our website and platform are already live and being used. Your job will not be to build everything from scratch — it will be to make the existing technology more stable, build new products, improve the platform, and shape what's next.

You'll initially be the only person in the tech team, working directly with the leadership team. You'll need to be hands-on with development while also thinking like a CTO — making technical decisions, identifying product opportunities, solving problems independently, and eventually building and leading a tech team.

This is a high-ownership role for someone who enjoys building, experimenting, and figuring things out rather than simply executing tickets.

What You'll Own

Technology & Platform

- Take complete ownership of the existing platform and technology
- Improve platform stability, performance, security, and scalability
- Identify technical gaps and proactively solve them
- Build and launch new features and products
- Improve existing systems and make them more efficient
- Own technical architecture and development decisions

Product & Innovation

- Work closely with the leadership team to identify product opportunities




- Convert business problems and ideas into practical technology solutions
- Propose and build new products that can create value for founders and 18startup
- Experiment rapidly, validate ideas, and turn successful ideas into products
- Think beyond "what to build" and understand why it should be built

Technical Leadership

- Establish engineering practices, systems, and processes as the company grows
- Make technology decisions with long-term scalability in mind
- Eventually hire, manage, and mentor developers
- Build a robust and reliable technology function from the ground up
- Take end-to-end ownership of technical outcomes

What We're Looking For

You must have:

- 5+ years of software development experience
- Strong hands-on development skills
- Experience building and maintaining production systems
- Ability to independently architect and build products
- Solid problem-solving and creative thinking skills
- Ability to work independently with minimal supervision
- Strong understanding of product development and user needs
- Willingness to code hands-on while taking broader technical ownership
- Ability to make technical decisions and take responsibility for the outcome

What matters most: We're not looking for someone who can only code.

We want someone who can look at a problem, understand the business and user need, figure out what should be built, design the solution, build it, and take ownership of the result.

Startup experience or experience building something independently is a strong plus.

Why This Role

- Become the first technical owner of a growing startup
- Work directly with the leadership team
- Own technology and product decisions from day one
- Build new products from idea to launch
- Shape the future technology team at 18startup
- Opportunity to grow into a CTO-level role as the company scales
- Hybrid, full-time role

Location: Hyderabad preferred, open to exceptional candidates elsewhere in India

Compensation: ₹25,000 – ₹30,000/month

Contact Details:

- Phone: +918639260889
- Email: [email protected]

📌 Founding Engineer (India)
🏢 18startup community
📍 India