Founding AI / Automations Engineer

Founding AI / Automations Engineer

American Circular | Tampa Bay, FL (preferred) or Remote | Full-Time

About American Circular:

We're building an AI-native operation for the rapidly increasing compute demand (both new & old) and the largest enterprise hardware replacement wave in decades. As Windows 10 hits end-of-life and corporate America replaces tens of millions of devices, someone has to securely process, recover, and remarket all of it. Companies that win this market (regionally and then nationally) will win because of AI, not despite it.

We're an AI company that recycles electronics, not the other way around. Our platform handles intake identification, material classification, compliance documentation, and remarketing — powered by frontier models, our own Electronics Intelligence Database (19,000+ devices and growing), and a stack designed from day one to be agentic.

We're early. Founding team is in place. Seed funding closing now. Year 1 is building the first facility, the first systems, and the first customers. All at once.

The Role:

You'll build the AI nervous system of a real operating company. Most AI engineering jobs are about training models or building features for AI products. This is something different: you'll deploy frontier models across a business (operations, sales, compliance, remarketing) to make every team smarter, faster, and leaner. Part engineering, part automation, part product instinct.

You'll work directly with our co-founders, our VP Operations, and sales executives. You'll have unusual latitude to pick tools, ship experiments, and bet on what's coming next. Your work won't sit in a sprint queue. It'll be in production within days/minutes and used by real humans the same week.

As we grow, the scope cover expanding computer vision across our sorting lines and facilities, robotics integration, and our customer-facing products. But Year 1 is about maximizing speed and efficiency of internal systems and teams a relentless focus on scalability.

What you'll actually do:

* Build and deploy AI agents across operations, sales, compliance, and remarketing workflows

* Wire frontier models (Claude, GPT, Gemini) into our internal stack (HubSpot, AWS, Google Workspace, Slack, Granola, Fireflies, custom systems)

* Stand up MCP servers, agentic loops, and automation pipelines that compound team productivity

* Extend and operationalize our proprietary Electronics Intelligence Database

* Contribute to our customer-facing platform (computer vision intake, device identification, automated compliance documentation)

* Sit close to the actual work (facility ops, sales calls, audits) and find automation opportunities most engineers would never see

Who we're looking for:

We're not looking for ten years of experience. We're looking for someone who's paying attention to where AI is going, what frontier models can do this month that they couldn't do last month, and what becomes possible when you stop asking permission to ship.

You probably:

* Have shipped something real using a frontier model API (side project, hackathon, internship, indie hack)

* Know your way around Python; bonus for TypeScript

* Get genuinely excited about new model releases. Not just academically, you're actually trying the new stuff the day it drops

* Have built with Claude Code, Cursor, MCP servers, or agentic frameworks (or rolled your own)

* Are comfortable with API integrations, webhooks, and cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred)

* Can hit a wall, read the docs, and figure it out

We care less about:

- Where you went to school

- Whether you've done "ITAD" before (some of us haven't, either)

- Whether your title currently says "engineer"

Opportunity:

Founding-level equity. Competitive base. Direct line to the founders. The chance to define what an AI-native operating company actually looks like. This is an early-stage startup. It will be intense. The work will be real, the pace will be fast, and the upside (both in what you'll learn and what you'll own) will be meaningful.

To apply, submit:

1. Your resume or LinkedIn

2. A link to something you've built using AI (GitHub repo, demo video, hosted project, Twitter thread documenting an experiment, etc).

3. A short paragraph (3–5 sentences) on: What's something you've built or hacked together in the last 30 days using a frontier model that surprised you or anyone else?

That third question is the most important part. We'll read every answer.

American Circular | Tampa Bay, Florida | www.americancircular.ai