Company Description

GrantsMate is an AI-powered platform designed by researchers to help universities, faculty, and research teams focus more on discovery and innovation and less on administration. The platform streamlines funding and grant discovery through natural-language search tailored to users’ publications, experience, and institutional profiles. It also supports collaborator matching by recommending research partners across departments, disciplines, and campuses using AI-driven suggestions and interactive network maps. The team brings hands-on experience in research funding administration at an R1 university, creating tools that directly address the real challenges researchers face. GrantsMate offers an opportunity to work at the intersection of AI, research enablement, and higher education.

Role Description

GrantsMate is looking for founding technical team members to help design, build, and scale the next generation of AI-powered research infrastructure for universities and research institutions.

We are seeking experienced engineers and technical builders across backend systems, AI infrastructure, frontend engineering, DevOps, and security. Some of the work involves implementing proven production architectures for enterprise AI systems, while other parts involve solving genuinely difficult problems around institutional AI deployment, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), research knowledge systems, and secure multi-tenant infrastructure.

The platform already exists as a working prototype. The current phase is focused on transforming the system into a scalable, production-ready platform suitable for institutional adoption.

You would work directly with the CTO and play a major role in shaping both the product and the engineering culture of the company. We expect early technical hires to grow into long-term leadership roles as the company expands.

This opportunity is especially well suited for senior engineers, experienced startup builders, research software engineers, AI/ML engineers, and technically strong PhD students or postdocs interested in applied AI systems and research infrastructure.

The role structure is flexible and may be full-time, part-time, contract-based, or advisory depending on experience and availability. Compensation may include significant equity participation for the right founding team candidates.

Remote collaboration is supported, with preference for candidates located in the Northeast or those able to travel occasionally for in-person collaboration as the company grows.

Qualifications

·       Strong software engineering and production system development experience, with the ability to work across backend, frontend, infrastructure, and AI-integrated application layers.

·       Experience building and maintaining scalable web applications using modern frameworks and production engineering practices.

·       Proficiency with frontend development using React, Next.js, TypeScript, and responsive UI design principles.

·       Hands-on backend development experience with Python, FastAPI, APIs, asynchronous services, database architecture, and integration with external systems.

·       Familiarity with AI infrastructure and retrieval systems, including vector databases, RAG workflows, LLM integrations, or document-grounded AI systems, is strongly preferred.

·       Experience with PostgreSQL, Redis, containerized deployments, and distributed service architectures.

·       Familiarity with DevOps and infrastructure tooling, including Docker, CI/CD pipelines, cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), monitoring, and secure deployment practices.

·       Experience with authentication and enterprise security systems such as RBAC, OIDC, SAML, Keycloak, or tenant-aware application architecture is highly desirable.

·       Comfortable working in fast-moving startup environments with evolving requirements and significant technical ownership.

·       Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly, collaborate across product and technical teams, and contribute to architectural and product decisions.

·       Strong emphasis on maintainability, documentation, developer experience, and long-term system reliability.

·       Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience. Advanced research, AI/ML, or startup experience is a plus.

·       Interest in AI systems, research infrastructure, higher education, or institutional technology platforms is highly valued.

Compensation

Compensation is flexible and will depend on experience, availability, and level of contribution.

For strong founding team candidates, compensation may include:

·       meaningful equity participation,

·       competitive cash compensation where applicable,

·       flexible engagement structures (full-time, part-time, contract, or advisory),

·       opportunities for long-term leadership and technical ownership as the company grows.

We are particularly interested in individuals who are excited about helping shape an early-stage AI company focused on research and higher education infrastructure.