Software Engineer

**Baton** Software Engineer; $180-220k + Equity at 0.5%; NYC

**About Company** Baton is building the AI-native marketplace for buying and selling small businesses. We help owners and buyers navigate one of the most meaningful financial and personal transitions of their lives with clarity, speed, and confidence. We're on an exciting growth trajectory with ~30k buyers and sellers on the platform and 100+ completed transactions. We had our best month ever in March (nearly $500k in revenue) and are on track to do $800k in April (real money in the bank), with well over $10M in GMV monthly.

We've raised $15.5M to build a world-class platform, accelerate growth, support more owners, and scale our 30+ team in New York City. AI has unlocked a step change in what's possible in this market—and in how Baton operates. Our goal isn't to bolt AI onto existing workflows; it's to re-architect how the product works, how internal operations run, and how value compounds across the platform. Engineers here use AI as a force multiplier in their own work and in what they ship—and we take the craft of production AI seriously.

How we build AI at Baton: We ship AI systems into production and operate them like any other critical system. Expect to work across the full loop — from problem framing → data → evals → iteration → deployment → monitoring → continuous improvement — grounded in measurable outcomes (quality, latency, cost, reliability). We care about shipping quickly and building systems that hold up in the real world. We build in person in NYC because this work moves faster and gets better when the team is in the room together. We value low ego, high respect, direct communication, and real ownership.

Why join us: Baton has real momentum — we're gaining traction quickly, and our valuation tools, off-market listings, and streamlined closing process are changing how small business deals happen at scale. Because we're still a small, lean team, every hire has outsized impact: you'll help shape product direction, build core systems end-to-end, and raise the bar on customer-first execution. And the work has real meaning — when we do our job well, we give small business owners clarity, speed, and confidence at one of the most important financial and personal moments of their lives.

**About the Role** Join our AI-native engineering team as a Software Engineer. The engineering team is currently 7 people (a mix of contract and full-time), and everyone is AI-focused. You'll work directly with our Head of Engineering and product team to build the AI-native platform powering how small businesses are bought and sold. Your work will directly impact thousands of owners navigating one of the biggest financial moments of their lives. This isn't a papers-and-prototypes role—it's hands-on product engineering with real AI systems. You'll ship full-stack AI projects end-to-end, collaborate closely with sales and operations, and transform real business needs into intelligent product experiences users engage with daily. At Baton, AI isn't a separate track—it's embedded in how we conceive, build, ship, and improve products. If you're an engineer who thrives owning the full loop—from identifying key problems to monitoring production—you'll excel here.

**Responsibilities** - Ship full-stack AI features end to end — from scoping with stakeholders to deploying production systems that solve real problems for buyers and sellers - Own 0-to-1 projects, collaborating with our sales & operations teams to identify high-leverage opportunities and build intelligent capabilities - Build and improve AI infrastructure that supports production-level inference, evaluation, and monitoring - Work across the stack to integrate AI seamlessly into our marketplace, creating clean interfaces that make intelligent features feel native to the product - Develop tools and systems that scale — from intelligent matching to document understanding and agentic workflows that transform our marketplace

**Required Skills** A. Shipped and owned production AI systems end-to-end (LLM and/or classic ML) — real users, measurable outcomes, operational responsibility B. Strong software engineering fundamentals with excellent Python skills and experience integrating foundation models in production

**Bonus Skills** - Experience with modern AI frameworks (LangGraph, LangChain, LlamaIndex), vector databases, or LLM observability tools - Experience designing evaluation suites for LLM systems (offline + online), including rubric-based and model-graded evals - Experience operating LLM systems at scale—latency, cost, caching, fallbacks, rate limits, reliability - Familiarity with retrieval quality work—chunking, reranking, query rewriting, relevance tuning - Marketplace, platform, fintech, or small business background with understanding of matching algorithms or business transactions - Familiarity with Go, GraphQL, or React/TypeScript - Background in NLP, information retrieval, or recommendation systems - Comfort in ambiguity — you thrive with limited structure and turn uncertainty into clarity - First principles thinking and intellectual curiosity — you dig into problems from the ground up rather than relying on established patterns

**Ideal Background** - Engineers with hands-on experience in practical AI implementations, demonstrating a deep enthusiasm for AI ("AI-pilled") and adaptability to the evolving AI landscape. - Intellectually curious problem-solvers with a solution-oriented attitude, capable of engaging directly with stakeholders to understand challenges—full-stack versatility preferred over rigid dependence on product requirements documents (PRDs). - Love small, high-trust teams with meaningful ownership over capabilities that differentiate the product - Prefer shipping to production and measuring performance over endless tinkering - Are passionate about helping small business owners navigate one of the most significant moments in their journey - Can balance "good enough for now" with maintainable, scalable systems—pragmatic about simple solutions vs complex models - Embody low ego, high respect—direct, thoughtful communication; strong feedback muscle - No strict years-of-experience requirement — we prioritize demonstrated AI shipping experience and the right mindset over tenure. Open to more senior engineers who understand how to leverage AI, as well as younger engineers who are genuinely "AI-pilled." - Strong product sense — you can be your own product manager when needed, translating business needs into technical solutions without waiting for a spec - A track record of shipping — you've taken ambiguous problems from concept → production and can point to impact

**Logistical Info** - **Location:** NYC. 4 days/week; Open to relocation. Visa sponsorship: Yes. - **Compensation:** $180-220k + Equity at 0.5%

**Example Candidates** - [Jackson Dahl](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackson-dahl/) **Green Flags** - I think engineers that have done practical AI work, but really folks that are "AI-pilled" and have the right attitude to work in the new AI era as well as folks that are truly intellectually curious and problem solvers (so can be more full stack and meet with stakeholders to understand the problem, not need a PRD necessarily)

**Red Flags** - Preference for roles at larger organizations where hands-on, execution-focused work is limited. - Lack of a proactive, solution-oriented mindset or reluctance to deeply engage with complex problem spaces. - Exclusive interest in pure research roles or AI enablement initiatives within established enterprises.

**Interview Process** 1. Initial Chat: Meet with David Elbaz for screening (Chat left the process Jul 2026; David has run point since). 2. Super Day (On-Site): Meet Dylan (Co-Founder), CTO, Senior Engineer, and complete a case study. 3. Decision: Goal is to decide after the Super Day.