Lanai logo

Founding Frontend Engineer

Lanai
Full-time
On-site
Palo Alto, California, United States
$200,000 - $230,000 USD yearly
Frontend Development

About Lanai

Lanai is building the first Enterprise AI Observability and Security platform, creating the missing infrastructure layer for the AI revolution. Our browser-based (to start) technology gives large enterprises unprecedented visibility into how AI is actually being used across the enterpriseβ€”down to the prompt levelβ€”solving critical challenges that no other platform can address.

At Lanai, you'll be tackling fascinating technical problems at the intersection of browser extension development, edge computing, and real-time data analysis. Our engineering challenges include detecting AI interactions across thousands of interfaces, building sophisticated local ML classification systems, and creating intuitive visualizations that make complex AI usage patterns immediately actionable.

Founded by technical leaders who built core infrastructure at Google, VMware, Meta and Splunk, we've raised capital from Lux Capital (Hugging Face, Databricks), Juxtapose, F7 Ventures, and BAG Ventures. Fortune 1000 companies are already deploying our technology to discover shadow AI, protect sensitive data, and optimize their AI investments.

Living our values enables us to foster trust, take risks, and achieve extraordinary results together:

  • Curiosity: Question openly, learn quickly, share knowledge

  • Community: Celebrate diversity, unite in purpose, practice empathy

  • Commitment: Maintain high standards, honor promises, focus on impact

  • Clarity: Communicate directly with care, bring focus to ambiguity

Located in Palo Alto, our highly-technical, nerdy (and nice!) small team brings together enterprise leaders from SignalFx, VMware, Google, and Meta. We're advised by industry leaders including Fredrick "Flee" Lee (CISO at Reddit), Raghu Raghuram (former VMware CEO), and Yvonne Wassenaar (former CIO of New Relic).

The Technical Challenge

As our founding Frontend Engineer, you'll create sophisticated browser extensions and intuitive dashboards that provide enterprise-wide AI visibility. This isn't just another web appβ€”it's building systems that can perform local AI detection, operate efficiently at the edge, and maintain seamless cloud integration. Your code will power interfaces that enable organizations to discover, protect, and scale their AI usage.

Impact You'll Have

  • Create a sophisticated browser extension that performs local AI detection and data classification

  • Build intuitive dashboards for enterprise-wide AI visibility and governance

  • Implement real-time updates and synchronization between cloud and edge computing environments

  • Engineer maintainable, robust frontend applications that ensure responsive and delightful user experiences

  • Use observability tools to provide insightful monitoring and drive feature adoption

What You Bring

  • Deep technical expertise in frontend development (5+ years experience)

  • Experience building and shipping production browser extensions or edge computing solutions

  • Strong foundation in React, TypeScript, and modern frontend architecture

  • Knowledge of WebAssembly and performance optimization for browser-based applications

  • Experience implementing complex data visualizations and real-time dashboards

  • Background in enterprise SaaS and multi-tenant architectures

  • Ability to collaborate effectively with backend and ML engineers

  • Willingness to work in Palo Alto 3x/week

What We Offer

  • Founding Engineer Ownership: Design and build critical systems from the ground up versus joining established companies where core architecture decisions are already made

  • Unmatched Financial Upside: Early equity in a SaaS AI governance and data analytics company with early exercise and Qualified Small Business Stock tax benefits

  • Exceptional Leadership Access: Work directly with co-founder/CEO Lexi Reese (Google, Gusto, Meta), co-founder/chairman Steve Herrod (original CTO of VMware, investor @ General Catalyst + Juxtapose), CTO Rajesh Raman (supported tech infra that took Meta/Google public before moving to SignalFX, Splunk) and CPO Mohit Mehta (Splunk, Nvidia)

  • Competitive salary ($170k+)

  • Health, dental, and vision insurance

  • Unlimited PTO

Note: Research shows qualified candidates, especially from underrepresented groups, often hesitate to apply unless they meet 100% of listed qualifications. If you're excited about this role but don't check every box, we strongly encourage you to apply. We're committed to building a diverse team and would love to consider your unique background."

Lanai is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate representation of all backgrounds and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.