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Tafend

Technical Co-Founder

Tafend, San Francisco, California, United States, 94199

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Role Technical Co-Founder (GovTech / DefenseTech) — U.S. Citizen.

Location Bay Area preferred (in‑person 1 day/week if possible; mostly remote for now).

Compensation 15–30% founder equity (skill/scope/commitment) + salary after funding.

Eligibility U.S. citizens only; all ages can apply (no clearance required to start).

About us Tiny, pre‑product GovTech/DefenseTech startup building a secure, private platform used by government buyers and vetted suppliers. Unclassified at first. We move carefully where security matters and fast where it doesn’t.

What you’ll do

Own the build end‑to‑end: plan architecture → ship MVP → iterate with users.

Security by default: 2FA, RBAC/permissions, audit logs, encrypted storage, input validation, safe file uploads (type/size scan).

Infra/DevOps: stand up AWS/Azure, CI/CD (GitHub Actions), logging/metrics/alerts, backups, least‑privilege IAM, basic incident runbook.

Data & matching: start with rules/filters; evolve to embeddings/LLM‑assisted recommendations.

Product partner: write crisp specs, ship weekly, adjust to feedback.

Hiring later: help recruit/mentor 1–3 engineers once V1 is stable.

Must‑have skills (proof > years)

Backend/API: schema design, REST/GraphQL, sessions, pagination, rate limits, jobs/queues; strong PostgreSQL/SQL.

Frontend: React + Next.js (or similar), clean accessible UI; Tailwind or equivalent.

Security: CSRF/XSS protections, CSP/security headers, secrets mgmt, logging, you can explain.

Search/Matching: search + filters; willing to integrate vectors/embeddings + LLM APIs.

Nice to have

Marketplaces/B2B SaaS with complex permissions/audit trails.

Exposure to ITAR/EAR, CMMC/FedRAMP concepts; GovCloud/Azure Gov.

Prior founder/early‑employee or notable OSS.

Initial stack (flexible if justified)

Languages: TypeScript, Python, SQL, HTML/CSS.

Frontend: React, Next.js, Tailwind, Headless UI/Radix.

AI: OpenAI/Anthropic embeddings + lightweight rerankers.

Personality & values

Not afraid of taking smart risks; bias to action.

High integrity, low ego, crisp communication.

Comfortable with ambiguity and constraints.

Care about national‑interest problems; mission‑driven.

How we work Remote for now, Bay Area; whiteboard, pair, test, ship. Steady pace, strong docs, few meetings. Unclassified to start; security‑by‑design from day one.

Compensation (details) 15–30% equity (based on skill/scope/on‑site), salary after venture raised. Standard 4‑yr vesting, 1‑yr cliff, IP assignment & confidentiality. Sensible double‑trigger acceleration considered. Clause is considered.

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