Being a founding engineer at an AI startup

In this episode of the podcast, Gergely Orosz interviews Michelle Lim, a founding software engineer at AI startup Warp and founder of Flint, about her experiences and insights into thriving in early-stage startups. Michelle shares her journey from interning at companies like Meta, Slack, and Robinhood to becoming a founding engineer at Warp, highlighting the importance of ownership and product impact. She discusses her decision-making process in joining a small, unknown company, the technologies she worked on at Warp, and the differences between product and infrastructure engineers. The conversation also covers negotiating equity, conducting reference checks, and the cautionary tales of joining AI startups, as well as Michelle's current startup, Flint, which builds autonomous websites using AI. She also offers advice to software engineers looking to join as founding engineers, emphasizing the importance of volunteering for unglamorous tasks and demonstrating a passion for the business.