Jacob HurwitzEngineering Manager, Common RoomJacob, build Genera.
You've built from zero, led at Dropbox scale, and managed an engineering team inside applied AI. Across Gem, Dropbox, and Common Room, you've stayed close to product and code while growing people. That player-coach range is what Genera needs in an Eng Lead: someone to own the US team, shape the architecture, and build an exceptional engineering culture from the start.
Your experience, matched to the role
Founders who know the problem, backed to win
Genera is building AI agents that let enterprise software teams run every deployment like it’s their most critical customer, doing the deep discovery, configuration, and testing work of world-class Forward Deployed Engineers at superhuman speed. After years leading engineering inside an applied-AI GTM company, you know exactly how real and valuable this kind of problem is, and how much the founding team matters.
You'd work directly with Will, who's hiring for this role
Will Patterson (Co-Founder & CEO) was an early PM at Clari who built multiple products from scratch into $10M+ ARR lines, ran M&A across three acquisitions in three years, and owned AI strategy across the portfolio, plus a stint teaching product design at Stanford. As a fellow builder-leader, he's the one you'll be partnering with day to day.
And James, who wrote the playbook on deployment
James Honsa was employee #12 at Ironclad, its first Forward Deployed Engineer, and built the deployment function that scaled customers from $400K to $150M+ ARR. Will and James were Stanford classmates, 15 years of trust behind the company.
Backed to win early
A Seed led by First Round Capital, with BoxGroup, WndrCo, and founders/execs from OpenAI, Microsoft, Ironclad, Clari, and Anrok. Serious conviction behind a small, experienced team.
A real lead seat for the US team
You'd lead Genera's US engineering team through the next phase of growth, shipping product, owning architecture, and shaping how the team builds in the age of AI, while partnering closely with the Bangalore team and its Eng Lead. The scope you've earned, with more room to run.
A market moving toward Genera
As enterprise AI companies add forward-deployed and implementation talent, deployment remains a constraint on growth. Genera is building for that bottleneck while the category is still taking shape, giving a small team the chance to define how the work gets done.
Operating experience, turned into product
Genera isn't a thesis off a slide. Both founders lived this work before they built the company, James running deployment inside a fast-scaling enterprise software company, Will shipping products next to design partners and carrying six-figure deals at Clari. They kept hitting the same wall, so they set out to build the system they wished they'd had.
We build hard and protect a full life
James recently shared how we use dinners to build community with the deployment leaders on the front lines of enterprise AI. But at Genera, sharing meals isn’t only a category-building strategy. It’s a core part of how we work. Building something from nothing is hard, and the founders are deliberate about the rituals that keep us human while we do it.
Tuesday team dinners, a.k.a. “Weird Lunch”
Once a week, no matter what, we stop in the evening to eat dinner together. The one rule for whoever's picking (the “dinner dictator”): it has to be something that would be weird to eat for lunch. Some nights we talk about the latest model release, more often it's K-pop, Veblen goods, or parenting wisdom.
Celebrating the wins, together
We mark milestones with a shared meal and a toast to every Generator who made the win happen. The most recent was a team dinner in SF, celebrating a new milestone customer.
High standards, with room for life
Many of us are parents, so we know that doing the best work of your career and keeping a full life outside it are not a trade-off. We build flexibility and respect for time away from the keyboard into how the team works.
“Every high-growth company is racing to hire Forward Deployed Engineers, and every one of them hits a capacity wall. That wall is the opportunity.”The bet behind Genera, agents that do the routine work of world-class deployment teams at superhuman scale
Worth a conversation, Jacob?
No pressure and no formal process to start, just 30 minutes with Will to talk through the role, the technical problems, and whether this is the right next chapter for you.
Will Patterson, Co-Founder & CEO, GeneraSee what Genera is building