Y Combinator

From ICPC World Finals to competitive programming clubs to building generalist audio models as the first engineer at a YC startup.
How Dylan Anderson became founding engineer at Adam
Dylan left Minnesota for San Francisco to build AI agents for CAD software as the first engineer at Adam (W25).
Founding Engineer SeriesWork at a Startup
How Andrew HunzekerHesed became Employee #1 at 10x Science
A principal engineer left consumer-scale software to build AI-native scientific analysis tools as the founding engineer at 10x Science.
Founding Engineer SeriesWork at a Startup
How Max Friedlander became founding operations at Petrarch
A math major who turned down safe internships to lead high-stakes deals at a YC S26 startup supplying data for frontier AI labs.
Founding Engineer SeriesWork at a Startup
How David Mount became employee #2 (for the second time) at 10x Science
by Ryan Choi10/30/2026
A veteran engineer finds his next act helping scientists discover cures, one amino acid at a time, at YC W26 startup 10x Science.
How Yair Alon went from building Portrait Mode at Google to founding researcher at Poetiq
by Ryan Choi10/30/2026
After 10 years at Google Research and DeepMind, Yair Alon joined Poetiq to build an AI that improves itself.
How Varsha Parthasarathy became engineer #1 at Flex — solving a problem she'd experienced
by Ryan Choi10/30/2026
From Lyft's self-driving division to fixing HSA/FSA payments, Varsha joined Flex as its first engineer and built from scratch.
How Sherif Amer went from electronics engineer to employee #1 at Indemni
by Ryan Choi10/30/2026
A layoff, two years of travel, and a self-taught pivot to software led Sherif Amer to become the founding engineer at Indemni.
How Alex Lee became the first engineer at Magic Patterns
by Ryan Choi10/28/2026
Alex Lee left his own startup to join Magic Patterns as founding engineer — and built a slide deck feature in a weekend.
How Vin Bui became engineer #1 at Nowadays — and started treating it like his own company
by Ryan Choi10/20/2026
Vin found Nowadays on Work at a Startup, saw a codebase he could fix, and joined as the first engineer. Now he builds AI voice tools and mentors the team.
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