Founding Engineer - Town of Ithaca

| Ithaca, NY (hybrid preferred) · Remote possible | Full-time · The Problem · Speaking is the hardest language skill to practice at scale. Students sit through years of language courses and still freeze in real conversation. Instructors want to help, but there's no way to give 3 ...

Job description

| Ithaca, NY (hybrid preferred) · Remote possible | Full-time
The Problem
Speaking is the hardest language skill to practice at scale. Students sit through years of language courses and still freeze in real conversation. Instructors want to help, but there's no way to give 30 students meaningful speaking practice in a 50-minute class. We're fixing that.
What We've Built
ChitterChatter gives language students an AI conversation partner that's controlled by their instructor. Instructors build scenario-based speaking practice activities tied to their curriculum. Students practice in low-stakes real-time voice conversations and get personalized feedback. Confidence transfers back to the classroom and the real world.
We're pre-seed funded, already active at Cornell University and NYU Shanghai, and growing to 20–25 universities this year.
The Role
You'd be our first engineering hire and the technical backbone of the company.

You'll take ownership of the codebase and infrastructure, shape the technical roadmap, and build the infrastructure that scales ChitterChatter from a pilot to the standard tool in university language programs nationwide.

This isn't a "build to spec" role. You'll have significant creative latitude and a direct line between your work and student outcomes.
What You'll Do

Take ownership of the full stack — frontend, backend, infrastructure
Build scalable backend systems as we expand across institutions
Design tools that give instructors control over how students practice and receive feedback
Integrate with university ecosystems (LTI, SSO, FERPA-compliant data handling)
Ship fast using AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.)
Collaborate directly with founders and stakeholders to shape the product

Who You Are

4+ years of professional software engineering experience
Full-stack, with strong backend instincts — you've built systems that needed to scale
Comfortable (or fluent) with Python, PostgreSQL, React/TypeScript
Familiar with LTI, SSO, and the compliance realities of edtech (FERPA)
You use AI tools daily in your workflow
Genuine interest in language learning and the frustrations students face
Experience in edtech or education is a strong plus
Creative, collaborative, and opinionated about building things that matter

Compensation
$140K–$160K base salary + 1.5%–2.0% founding equity (4-year vest, 1-year cliff)
Location
Strong preference for relocating to Ithaca, NY — we work hybrid and believe in-person collaboration accelerates early-stage building. However, fully remote is possible for the right person.
Why This, Why Now
Language education is a massive, underserved market, especially for classroom environments. Instructors have no scalable way to give students meaningful speaking practice tied to what they're actually teaching. AI just made speaking practice at scale possible.
We have funding, early traction at a top university, and a clear path to revenue. What we need is an engineer who wants to own the technical vision of a company.

If you've ever been frustrated trying to learn a language and thought there has to be a better way — you understand why this matters and why we're building this.

Apply → Either drop a note here or shoot me an email at [email protected] with your resume. We'd love to hear about your interest in the company and any experience with language learning