Helium — Full-Stack Engineer (Team Version)

Type: Full-time | On-site | San Francisco, CA Compensation: $150,000–$250,000 + 0.50%–1.50% equity (founding-tier) Hiring count: 2 Visa sponsorship: None available — US citizen or visa holder only; no $100K H-1B Reports to: Shishir (CTO, ex-Alexa ML Infra) — LinkedIn not provided

About Helium

Helium is building Self-Improving Software: AI that automatically generates and tests new product experiences to lift revenue. The product helps consumer apps like Calm, Whisprflow, and Locket convert more users to subscriptions and retain them — managing monetization experiences, pinging customer apps in real time, and auto-generating AI-driven onboarding and paywall variants. The team is 8 people (5–6 engineers, 75% ex-founders, all 3 cofounders hold ML degrees). Currently $80K MRR doubling monthly, on track to $1M ARR with a Series A targeted this summer, serving tens of millions of AI experiences per day.

Founded: 2024 | Team size: 1–10 (Seed) | Total funding: $6M Industry: Consumer Tech Website: tryhelium.com Office: San Francisco, CA Backers: Y Combinator, Gradient (Google's AI fund), operators from OpenAI

Why Candidates Should Join

• Real ownership: 0.50%–1.50% equity for founding-tier engineers
• Scale now: Serving tens of millions of AI experiences/day, 10x'ing toward hundreds of millions
• Frontier access: Build on the newest AI models before public release
• Perks: All meals in office, gym membership at nearby gym, quarterly off-sites

Intake Call Summary

• The intake on the role page is a video and was not transcribed — summary unavailable. Send the transcript or key points to populate this section.

The Role

Helium is hiring 2 full-stack engineers to own big chunks of the AI Experience Generation product serving millions of users daily. The team is not prescriptive: you're given problems and expected to propose solutions and execute them, write your own PRDs/quick specs, talk to customers, and own features end-to-end. In-office Monday–Friday, with weekend pushes common.

What You'll Be Doing

• Ship features on the Next.js / Golang AI Experience Generation product serving tens of millions of users daily
• Tune, optimize, and load-test servers as Helium 10x's volume to hundreds of millions of users per day
• Design data systems and ML training infrastructure that power automated experimentation at scale
• Work directly with founders and customers (Calm, Whisprflow, Locket, comparable) to design, implement, and deliver new experiences
• Own features end-to-end: write PRDs/specs, ship, test, and validate against real users

Tech stack: Next.js (frontend), Golang (backend), Python, AWS

Qualifications

Work Experience

• 0–7 years of software engineering experience with a full-stack range (both backend and frontend) [Must have]
• Backend experience (Python, Go, or infrastructure like AWS) AND frontend experience (TypeScript/JavaScript/React or modern equivalent) [Must have]
• One of: 1.5+ YOE at a Tier-1 engineering team (FAANG, YC company, scale-up); ex-founder background; CS degree from an elite school (Ivies, Waterloo, well-respected state schools); or other evidence of greatness (side projects, OSS, etc.) [Must have]

Miscellaneous

• Open to moving to SF and working Monday–Friday in the office with frequent weekend pushes [Must have]
• US citizen or visa holder; no $100K H-1B [Must have]

Nice-to-Have

• Built or owned 01 product/features from scratch
• Early engineer at a startup (roughly #1–15) or worked at an early-stage startup / small product team
• LLM APIs shipped in production: prompting, RAG, agents, evals, AI workflows
• Data pipeline/ingestion/analytics infra (queues, async jobs, webhooks, ETL/ELT, workflow systems)
• Builds in public: writing, OSS, talks, Show HN, meaningful GitHub

Green Flags

• Ex-founder or early engineer (#1–15) at an early-stage startup — 75% of Helium's team are ex-founders; direct fit
• Tier-1 engineering team background (FAANG, YC company, scale-up) with 1.5+ YOE and clear startup or side-project signal
• Elite CS school alumni (Ivies, Waterloo, well-respected state schools)

Card was collapsed ("Show More") on the role page — additional green flags may exist beyond these three.

Traits to Avoid

• Wants ML research, model training, data science, or pure infra/platform role — Zach direct exclude
• Pure frontend specialist or pure backend specialist — full-stack range is the bar
• 8+ YOE positioning for Staff / Principal / Architect scope — Helium is founding-tier IC, not management

Card was collapsed ("Show More") on the role page — additional red flags may exist beyond these three.

Role Details

Salary$150,000–$250,000Equity0.50%–1.50% (founding-tier)On-site policyIn-office San Francisco, Monday–Friday; frequent weekend pushes commonVisa sponsorshipNone available; US citizen or visa holder only, no $100K H-1BEmployment typeFull-timeLocationSan Francisco, CA

Screening Questions

Not specified on the role page. The Initial Screen with Zach (CEO) or Shishir (CTO) covers background, recent project, goals, and a drive/slope assessment, but no formal screening question list was provided. Confirm with client if a defined screening set exists.

Interview Process

Stage 1 — Pending Approval Candidates awaiting initial approval.

Stage 2 — Initial Screen (30 min) With Zach (CEO) or Shishir (CTO): background, recent project, goals, drive and slope assessment.

Stage 3 — Technical Screen (45 min) With Shishir: break down a real feature, discuss architecture, high-level coding.

Stage 4 — On-Site (3 hours total, in SF) Behavioral Deep-Dive with Zach + Technical Deep-Dive with Shishir.

Stage 5 — Work Trial (2–3 days, paid, SF office) Build a real feature end-to-end and present it.

Stage 6 — Offer Extended

Stage 7 — Candidate Hired

Ideal Companies & Backgrounds

Not present on the role page.

Ideal Candidate Profiles

Not present on the role page.

Rejected Candidate Feedback

None on the role page.