Gryps — Senior Software Engineer

Type: Full-time | Hybrid | New York, NY Compensation: $220K–$270K + competitive equity Hiring count: 2 Visa sponsorship: No — not open to any visas (US citizens / Green Card holders only) Reports to: Amir Tasbihi, Cofounder & CTO

About Gryps

Gryps is building the AI platform for construction capital program owners — fully managed knowledge graphs, AI agents, and automation for a massive industry that's barely been touched by modern software. The platform collects, organizes, and analyzes data and documents so owners can make better decisions and cut manual work managing capital projects.

Founded: 2020 | Team size: 20 | Total funding: $7.7M (seed) Backers: Primary Venture Partners, Pear VC, Flybridge, LDV Capital Industry: AI, Construction, Software Development Website: gryps.io Office: Tower 49, Midtown Manhattan, New York, NY

Why Candidates Should Join

• Own the platform: Fully managed knowledge graphs, AI agents, and automation for a giant industry untouched by modern software.
• Well-backed, lean, and AI-native: $7.7M seed from Primary, Pear VC, Flybridge, and LDV. A 20-person team that cut engineering from 12 to 5 and lifted output 4–5x through AI-native workflows.
• Clear leadership path: Senior IC role with a defined path to Lead Engineer within 3–6 months.
• Real ownership: Engineers wear multiple hats, take broad ownership, and shape both product and engineering culture.

Intake Call Summary

• Role: Senior Software Engineer / Tech Lead — prove IC value and grow into an engineering lead.
• Candidate bar: Startup experience, ideally founding engineers or tech leads; strong Python + AWS; flexible, wears multiple hats, comfortable with startup ambiguity.
• Company context: Team reduced from 12 to 5, AI-heavy development; culture values flexibility and a generalist mindset.
• Comp & logistics: Stated on the call as $200K–$250K base + equity (see conflict note below); hybrid NYC, 2–3 days in office (see conflict note below).
• Timeline: Hire two, ideally promote one to engineering lead in 6–12 months. Interview process = technical + in-person cultural.
• Pain points: Prior eng recruiting has been hard; needs someone who adapts quickly and adds value fast.
• Ideal profile: Product mindset + strong communication; early/mid-stage SaaS experience highly valued.
• Technical: Python essential, AWS highly preferred; backend crucial, frontend a plus but not required.

Data conflicts to resolve:

1. Salary — Intake call states $200K–$250K base; the posted role details and submission form state $220K–$270K. Using $220K–$270K as authoritative pending confirmation.
2. In-office days — Intake call says "2–3 days"; the Must-have requirement, hybrid policy, and role details all say 3 days/week. Using 3 days/week as authoritative pending confirmation.

The Role

A deeply technical IC who thrives in early-stage environments — shipping production backend services, making architectural decisions, and mentoring junior engineers, with a clear path to Lead Engineer within 3–6 months.

What You'll Be Doing

• Designing, building, and operating production-grade backend services and data pipelines using Python and AWS (Lambda, Step Functions, serverless architectures)
• Making critical architectural and system design decisions while leveraging AI coding tools (like Claude) to accelerate development
• Owning features end-to-end from backend to front end (React), eliminating handoffs in a ~90% backend / 10% frontend codebase
• Engaging directly with customers and forward-deployed engineers to understand workflows, clarify requirements, and translate ambiguous needs into shipped software
• Mentoring junior engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and pairing

Tech stack: Python, AWS, AWS Lambda, AWS Step Functions, REST APIs, Microservices, Databases, React, Serverless, Event-driven architecture, JSON, XML, CSV

Qualifications

Seniority

• 5+ years of experience in backend software engineering [Required]

Work Experience

• Founding engineer or early employee at a B2B SaaS startup (first ~10 hires, seed/Series A stage) [Must have]
• Owned production backend systems end-to-end (not just contributed) [Required]
• Prior tech lead or mentorship role guiding junior engineers [Strongly preferred]

Education

• BS in Computer Science or related STEM degree [Required]
• A lack of degree is acceptable, only if strong startup engineering track record [Strongly preferred]

Hard Skills

• Advanced Python expertise for production backend systems [Must have]
• Strong hands-on AWS experience (Lambda, Step Functions, serverless) [Required]
• Experience with AI coding tools and agentic development workflows [Strongly preferred]

Soft Skills

• Product-minded; willing to talk to customers and clarify requirements directly [Required]

Miscellaneous

• Based in or near New York City; 3 days/week in-office (Midtown) [Must have]

Traits to Avoid

• Only large-company experience with no startup or early-stage exposure
• Job hopper: multiple stints under one year with no clear narrative

Role Details

• Salary | $220K–$270K
• Equity | Competitive equity
• On-site policy | Hybrid — 3 days/week in-office, Midtown NYC (Tower 49, near Grand Central)
• Visa sponsorship | Not open to any visas (US citizens / Green Card holders only)
• Employment type | Full-time
• Location | New York, NY

Screening Questions

1. Are you able to work in New York and come into the office 3 times per week?
2. Describe your experience as a founding engineer or early employee at a startup: what did you own and how scrappy did you have to be?
3. Do you have any experience with, and are you willing to be in front of, customers / talk to non-engineers?
4. Can you be on-site? If not, are you willing to relocate?
5. What is your salary expectation?
6. How actively are you exploring new opportunities?

Interview Process

Stage 1 — Submit candidate After submission, you're notified if the hiring manager wants to proceed.

Stage 2 — Initial Screen (30 minutes) Intro call with Amir (CTO/Co-founder) to sell the candidate on the company vision, explain the value of what Gryps has built, assess startup mindset and cultural fit, and gauge mutual interest.

Stage 3 — Technical Interview (90–120 minutes) Combined technical session covering high-level coding concepts (not syntax-focused), a code review exercise, and a deep-dive into architecture and system design. Evaluates the candidate's ability to guide AI-generated code, verify and review it, and make sound architectural decisions. Conducted by the engineering team.

Stage 4 — Culture Fit Interview

Stage 5 — Onsite Interview (60 minutes) In-person at the Gryps office in NY with Amir and his co-founder, plus other team members. Evaluates cultural fit, flexibility, startup mindset, willingness to wear different hats, and interpersonal dynamics.

Stage 6 — Offer Extended

Stage 7 — Candidate Hired

Ideal Companies & Backgrounds

Updated Aug 18, 2026

Seed to Series B AI/ML startups with Python + AWS backends (scrappy builders with agentic/NLP experience) Hebbia, Glean, Vectara, Unstructured, LlamaIndex, Cohere, Weights & Biases, Anyscale, Modal Labs, Baseten

Data platform and knowledge graph startups (ingestion, pipelines, graph databases) Neo4j, Palantir Technologies, Databricks, Fivetran, Airbyte, dbt Labs, Dagster Labs, Prefect, Snowflake, RelationalAI

Ideal Candidate Profiles

For reference only — do not source this specific profile.

Kyle Milden — LinkedIn Lead Software Engineer / Cloud Architect / Finance MBA | West New York, NJ

• Prior experience as founding engineer or early employee in a SaaS startup
• Prior experience building professional software
• Great communication skills (MBA signals interest in leading; prior technical lead experience reinforces the same)

Rejected Candidate Feedback

• Focus on candidates with founding engineer / early startup experience in B2B SaaS — prioritize clear, end-to-end ownership in startup environments.
• Ensure candidates have deep, demonstrable Python and AWS serverless production experience with specific, measurable impact.
• Avoid profiles with short stints / job hopping — look for a stable, clear career narrative.
• Emphasize a product-minded, customer-facing approach that turns ambiguous requirements into shipped software.