Y Combinator
Product Engineer, Applications Operations
San Francisco Bay Area
Sponsorship not specified$250k-$500kDetected 116 days ago
ReactRailsFull-Stack DevelopmentPostgreSQLData EngineeringLLMsCommunication
About the role
- Y Combinator is hiring a full-stack product engineer to work at the center of how YC operates - from the application pipeline to events and internal tools.
- This role sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and operations.
- We don't have traditional PMs or designers.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and ship full-stack applications powering YC's admissions pipeline, events platform, and internal tools
- Develop and extend YC's events platform (Demo Day, meetups, recruiting events, office hours, investor events), including registration, coordination, and media handling
- Build deep AI and search systems (semantic search, embeddings, natural language queries) across large datasets
- Build systems that automate YC's admissions workflow (scheduling, notifications, status tracking, email triage, deadlines)
- Improve how applications are routed, interviews are coordinated, and information is surfaced to partners
- Develop internal tools and copilots using LLMs (email classification, workflow automation, natural language interfaces)
- Work directly with partners and ops teams to understand workflows and build better systems
- Engineers with experience in building full stack applications or workflow software
Requirements
- Experience shipping full-stack web applications
- Ability to work directly with non-technical stakeholders
Nice to have
- Experience with Rails, React, Postgres (or similar)
- LLMs, prompt engineering, or agent-based systems
- Workflow automation or integration-heavy systems
- Founder or early-stage experience
- YC operates with a small, high-trust team.
Skills
- Are a strong full-stack, product-minded engineer who enjoys owning products, not just code
- Love using AI in your work -- your dev stack is fully AI-enabled and you've built AI-enabled products or prototypes
- Like turning messy, high-stakes workflows into clean, usable systems
- Want to make product and UX decisions directly, without waiting on PMs or designers
- Are low-ego and comfortable getting along with everyone in our 100-person company
- Are comfortable with ambiguity and making tradeoffs
- Product-minded engineers who've built internal tools or workflow systems end-to-end
Compensation
- Compensation: $250K–$500K base + profit-sharing (comparable to startup equity or VC carry)
Benefits
- Medical, dental, vision, 401(k) + 4% match, parental leave, flexible PTO, and more
- Create dashboards and analytics to track pipeline health and operational metrics
- $250K-$500K base + profit-sharing (comparable to startup equity or VC carry)
Visa & Work Authorization
- Y Combinator is willing to sponsor certain employment visas in accordance with company policy.
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This listing is sourced directly from Y Combinator's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.