Founding Systems Architect
Plenteous
- Greenville, North Carolina, United States
- Greenville, North Carolina, United States
About
We're building something more ambitious on top of a profitable real estate business in Upstate South Carolina: a company that launches, acquires, and spins out other companies. The real-estate gives us the foundation to go build the portfolio.
Our plan is already in motion. The first venture under this approach is a lead-generation company where we hold significant equity and are actively helping drive forward as an early-stage business. We're also plugged into incubators and the local startup ecosystem, which gives us early access to high-potential investment opportunities. Internally, we're building with Claude Code, OpenClaw, agentic workflows, and modern AI development tools — maturing a PRD-to-implementation pipeline and maintaining a rules catalog that governs how AI-generated code enters our systems.
We're already building with AI and not just watching from the sidelines. But the speed of that building is creating its own problems — drift, sprawl, fragility — and we need someone to own the engineering architecture behind what comes next.
*The role*
Engineering here moves fast and is heavily AI-assisted. That creates leverage and mess in equal measure. Your job is to build on top of the leverage: take the hardest projects yourself, and set standards that let the rest of the team keep moving without creating fragility.
You'll own:
* *End-to-end ownership of our hardest projects* — where architectural decisions and implementation have to happen in the same head
* Architecture across internal applications, automations, and early product systems
* Engineering standards that turn AI-generated code into maintainable production systems — patterns for organization, testing, versioning, and documentation, chosen to reduce rework rather than create gates
* Hire and direct contract developers so outside work meets an internal bar
* Technical judgment on which systems stay internal and which have real product potential
* Architecture for the next bet — new ventures, acquisitions, or spinouts
You won't be a full-time IC. You will be close enough to the code to guide it — and to personally ship the hardest parts. *If you cannot work in code when needed, you will not be effective here.*
*What success looks like*
* The most complex projects get built — because you own them end-to-end
* The team ships faster because of your standards, not in spite of them
* Systems stop drifting as they grow
* AI-assisted output becomes production-worthy
* Contract developers ship work that meets our bar without heavy rework
* Internal tools become stable, modular, and extensible
* Leadership gets clearer technical judgment on where to invest, where to simplify, and where not to build
*Who this fits*
*You are not anti-AI, but you are not dazzled by it either.*
You are fluent in AI-native development. You work comfortably with vibe coding, agentic coding systems, rapid prototyping in Lovable or Cursor, code generation and refactoring in Claude Code, and tool-chains that evolve faster than traditional engineering stacks. You know these tools create real leverage. You also know that without standards, they create brittle systems and false confidence. That tension is the problem you want to solve.
Beyond that, you're a senior or staff-level engineer who:
* Has seen what happens when fast teams skip structure, and knows the fix is durable patterns applied consistently — not process theater
* Treats standards as infrastructure for speed, not gates on it
* Moves between architecture, implementation, and judgment without friction
* Pushes back with reasoning, not posture
* Writes clearly and communicates with low ego
If you think modern AI-assisted development is beneath you, temporary, or fundamentally unserious, this isn't your role.
*How we work*
Humility, hunger, grit, and generosity are our operating values. In practice: we challenge ideas rigorously, starting with our own. Standards apply equally to founders and teams. We care more about getting it right than being right. If you need authority to avoid being questioned, this isn't your company.
*Who you'll work with*
You'll work directly with a small leadership team. Rob (COO) has led inside sales at Accenture and across multiple software companies. Dan (CEO) worked in enterprise software sales at Oracle and across multiple software companies. We understand the commercial side of software well. We know the limits of that perspective. We need someone who's lived the engineering side.
*Compensation and logistics*
* Base $100,000–$125,000, set by demonstrated scope
* Equity on standard terms, with a one-year cliff
* Health insurance, PTO
* On-site in Greenville, SC
* W-2 role, with a structured 30/60/90-day review focused on mutual fit
The cash compensation isn't top-of-market. What you get instead is direct ownership of how a growing company builds, influence across multiple systems and ventures, equity in a profitable business that's actively building a portfolio, and a chance to shape the technical foundation before it calcifies. You'd be working closely with founders who are still in the build themselves, not delegating from a distance.
*To apply*
Send three things:
* An up-to-date resume.
* A short response to each of these:
* Describe a system where AI-assisted development created a real mess, and how you'd prevent it from happening at Plenteous. If you haven't seen this firsthand yet, tell us what you'd watch for.
* Show us your thinking on a hard architectural call you made — one where reasonable people could have chosen differently. What did you choose, and why?
* Two or three work examples: GitHub, live systems, screenshots, demos, or private-work walkthroughs
If the work is strong, we'll move fast.
Pay: $100,000.00 - $125,000.00 per year
Benefits:
* Health insurance
* Paid time off
Work Location: In person
Languages
- English
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