Product Engineer

Retape AI is an early‑stage startup building an AI‑native operating system for debt settlement. Backed by seasoned entrepreneurs, the company aims to transform how lenders and borrowers interact by automating negotiation, risk assessment, and repayment planning through large language models and proprietary data pipelines. Although the product is still in its beta phase, the founding team has already secured seed funding and is scaling the engineering organization in Bangalore to deliver a production‑grade platform that can handle millions of debt accounts across the United States. The culture is fast‑paced, data‑driven, and deeply customer‑obsessed; engineers are expected to own end‑to‑end features, iterate quickly, and constantly validate assumptions with real users. The role of Founding Product Engineer is a hybrid of product thinking and deep technical execution. You will join a small, high‑performing team that works in the US timezone, collaborating directly with the CEO, product managers, and data scientists. Your primary mission is to design, build, and ship core components of the AI‑native OS, ranging from real‑time recommendation engines to secure micro‑services that expose settlement APIs. You will also be responsible for setting up the development workflow, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoring dashboards that keep the system reliable at scale. Because the team is tiny, you will have a high degree of ownership and will be encouraged to propose new ideas, experiment with emerging AI models, and influence the product roadmap. Key responsibilities include: 1. Architect and develop scalable backend services in Go or Python that power debt‑settlement workflows. 2. Build and integrate large language model APIs for negotiation assistance. 3. Design data schemas and pipelines to ingest, clean, and analyze financial data. 4. Implement end‑to‑end testing, automated deployment, and observability using Docker, Kubernetes, and Prometheus. 5. Collaborate with product managers to translate user problems into technical specifications. 6. Conduct user research sessions, prototype solutions, and iterate based on feedback. 7. Mentor junior engineers and help define coding standards and best practices. 8. Participate in on‑call rotations and ensure high availability of critical services. 9. Contribute to security reviews and compliance checks for handling sensitive financial data. 10. Drive performance optimisations to meet sub‑second latency targets. Tech stack: Go, Python, Node.js, React, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS (EKS, S3, Lambda), Terraform, GitHub Actions, OpenAI/GPT APIs, Grafana/Prometheus. Growth path: Starting as a founding engineer, you can progress to Lead Engineer, then Engineering Manager, and eventually Head of Product Engineering as the team expands. The role offers equity, exposure to cutting‑edge AI, and the chance to shape a product from day one. Why join? You will work on a mission‑critical problem that impacts millions of borrowers, gain deep expertise in AI‑driven finance, and enjoy the autonomy of a startup backed by a world‑class team. The US‑timezone alignment provides exposure to international stakeholders, and the Bangalore office offers a vibrant tech community with excellent infrastructure.