“Early-stage” gets used for everything from a two-person company with a pre-seed cheque to a 150-person business three rounds in. For a job seeker the label matters because it predicts the job itself: how much of it is defined, who you would report to, how much equity is on the table and whether anyone has written a job post yet.

This page pins the term down with sourced definitions, explains what a Series A company actually is, shows which job boards make a company’s stage visible, and lists real early-stage roles in New York, London and remote as they stood on 15 October 2026.

What counts as an early-stage startup?

In practice, a company that has raised a pre-seed, seed or Series A round and is still small enough that a founder is involved in every hire. There is no official cut-off; investors and data providers draw the line in slightly different places.

The clearest public definitions come from Crunchbase News, which sorts funding rounds by stage for its reporting. The table summarises them, with what each stage tends to mean for someone applying. The last column is general guidance, not data.

Funding stages as Crunchbase News defines them, with what each usually means for a candidate
StageCrunchbase News definitionWhat it usually means for the job
Pre-seed“a small seed funding, often below $1 million”; accelerator rounds below $1 million count hereFounders plus perhaps one or two hires; roles rarely posted
SeedAmong the first rounds, while the company is “young and working to gain traction”; usually “between $1 million and $3 million”Founding titles, broad scope, larger equity grants, a founder as your manager
Series A and Series B“funding rounds for earlier-stage companies”, on average “between $5 million and $30 million”First specialists and team leads; more roles posted; a real interview loop begins
Series C and onward“For later-stage and more-established companies”, usually “at least $20 million”Recruiters, levelled roles, narrower scope

Note that Crunchbase groups Series B with Series A as “earlier-stage”. Most job seekers use “early-stage” more narrowly, to mean seed and Series A, and that is how this page uses it.

What is a Series A startup?

A Series A startup has raised its first large round from venture investors, usually after a seed round, to turn early traction into a repeatable business. On Crunchbase’s figures, Series A and B rounds average between $5 million and $30 million.

Y Combinator’s “A guide to seed fundraising” sets out the usual order: “First comes a seed round, then a Series A, then a Series B, then a Series C, and so on to acquisition or IPO.” It adds a caveat worth knowing when you read a company’s history: “None of these rounds are required and, for example, sometimes companies will start with a Series A financing”. So a company with no seed round on record can still be young.

For a candidate, the Series A changes three things:

  • The hiring volume. The round is usually raised to grow the team, so several roles open at once.
  • The roles. The first engineering, sales or design leads arrive, and early generalists start reporting to them.
  • The process. Roles get written down and posted, and a recruiter or an applicant tracking system may appear for the first time.

How do Series A startup jobs differ from seed-stage jobs?

Seed-stage jobs are broader, less defined and carry more equity; Series A jobs are more specific, more often posted, and come with a manager who is not a founder. Neither is better; they suit different people.

YC’s company pages make the difference visible because they list team size, salary and equity for each role. Two New York companies from the same Fall 2025 batch, checked on 15 October 2026:

  • Aspect, with a team size of 3, listed a Founding Engineer at 1.50% to 2.50% equity and marked the role “Any (new grads ok)”.
  • Sava, with a team size of 7, listed a Founding Engineer at 0.50% to 1.50% equity and asked for “3+ years”.

Two companies are not a trend, and both are still seed-sized. But they show the direction: as a team grows, equity per hire narrows and experience requirements tighten. By Series A, expect titles without “Founding” in them and offers built around salary bands.

For seed, start with YC’s job pages, where the batch code dates each company; for Series A, start with Wellfound and read each company’s funding history. The Hacker News hiring thread is the one where the person posting usually works at the company, and general job sites rarely show stage at all.

Where early-stage roles are listed, and how each source signals a company’s stage
SourceWhat it coversHow stage shows
YC job pages and Work at a StartupRoles at YC-funded companies onlyEach listing shows the batch, e.g. “(S26)” for Summer 2026; company pages add founding year and team size
WellfoundStartups of all sizes and backersCompany tags: “Early Stage” (“Startup in initial stages”) or “Growth Stage” (“Expanding market presence”)
Hacker News “Who is hiring?”A monthly thread of posts from hiring companiesNot tagged; read headcount and funding in each post
Company careers pagesOne company’s open rolesNot shown; check the funding announcement

YC Work at a Startup is the quickest way to find the youngest companies, because the batch code dates them: a Summer 2026 company was in YC this year. Wellfound is wider, and its stage tags let you skip growth-stage listings when you only want small teams. If you need remote, startup job sites for remote roles covers how to read stage on remote listings; this page sticks to stage definitions and city pages.

Where are early-stage jobs listed in New York, London and remotely?

YC publishes city pages for New York and London and a remote page, and Wellfound has city and remote pages with counts. Start with YC’s city pages for the youngest companies, then widen on Wellfound.

What the pages showed on 15 October 2026:

  • New York. Wellfound’s New York page reported “3886 results total”. YC’s New York page carried founding roles from recent batches, including Aspect and Sava (both Fall 2025).
  • London. Wellfound’s London page reported “1040 results total”. YC’s London page listed founding roles at two Summer 2026 companies, PRINCEPS and Lamb Labs.
  • Remote. Wellfound’s remote page reported “11975 results total”. On YC’s remote page, the listings we saw came mostly from batches between 2016 and 2021, companies several years past their first round.

That last point is worth acting on. If you need remote and you want seed stage, you will find fewer matches on remote pages than on city pages, because very young teams often hire in one city first. Searching the city pages and asking about remote in your note can find roles the remote filter misses.

Which early-stage startups had open roles on 15 October 2026?

The four YC companies below each listed founding roles on their YC pages when checked on 15 October 2026. This is a dated sample, not a ranking, and early-stage hiring changes weekly: check each page before you apply.

A dated sample of early-stage YC companies with open founding roles (checked 15 October 2026)
CompanyYC batchTeam size listedOpen rolesLocationExperience asked
Aspect (media storage for creative teams)Fall 20253Founding Engineer; Founding DesignerNew York; designer also Remote (US)“Any (new grads ok)”
Sava (trusts)Fall 20257Founding Engineer; Founding Product ManagerNew York“3+ years”
PRINCEPS (insurance for compute)Summer 20262Founding EngineerLondon“1+ years”
Lamb Labs (AI chips)Summer 2026Not listedFounding ASIC Engineer; Founding AI Accelerator ArchitectLondon“1+ years”; architect role “Any (new grads ok)”

Sources are each company’s YC page, linked in the sources list. A team size of 2 or 3 means the person reading your application is almost certainly a founder. Posting ages vary: Sava’s Founding Engineer listing was about nine months old and Aspect’s about four, while PRINCEPS and Lamb Labs had posted within the past fortnight.

Why do so many early-stage jobs never get posted?

Because founders fill early seats from their own networks first, and because the funding that signals hiring is often announced weeks late or not at all. By the time a post exists, the founder has usually already talked to people they know.

Harj Taggar’s YC guide for founders hiring their first engineer calls personal networks “the most important source by far”. Funding news, the other early signal, lags too. Crunchbase News notes “there’s usually a gap of several weeks between finalizing paperwork and public disclosure”, and that smaller rounds “might be disclosed publicly, but not get picked up by the press or an automated data collection system.”

So watching job boards alone shows you the part of the early-stage market that is left after the network has been tried. Reaching the rest means writing to founders directly and spotting the signals yourself; finding startups before they post roles explains how to read them. How to get a job at a startup sets out the full approach, stage by stage.

Writing to seed and Series A founders before the post exists

The unposted share is where Backdoor fits. It is built for people targeting pre-seed through Series C companies, which covers every stage on this page plus the two rounds after.

Its morning sweep reads funding announcements and launch sites alongside YC, Crunchbase, Wellfound, GitHub and careers pages, so a round that closed this week can reach you before any job board reflects it. For each match, it looks up who founded the company and how to reach them, then writes a draft tying their news to your background.

Every draft waits for your go-ahead and then leaves from your own Gmail; if the founder stays quiet, up to three follow-ups continue in that one thread, stopping when a reply arrives. It does not apply to posted roles, so keep YC’s pages and Wellfound for those. Discovery is free; you pay for the sending.

If you want to reach seed and Series A founders before their roles are posted, see how Backdoor works.

Reading one YC listing before you write

Illustrative example written for this page: what a backend engineer in London takes from the PRINCEPS page before writing to the founder. It is not a real message or a real user's result.

Batch: Summer 2026. The company finished YC this year. It has probably raised a seed or pre-seed round and is hiring its first engineers.

Team size: 2. There is no hiring manager besides the founders. The reader of any note is a founder.

Role: Founding Engineer, London, “1+ years”. The bar is ability, not seniority. A year of shipped backend work is enough to be considered.

Equity: 0.50% to 1.50%. A wide range, which means it is negotiable and depends on what you bring.

The note that follows: two sentences on a system the engineer built that handled money or risk calculations, one sentence on why insurance for compute interests them, and a request for a 20-minute call. Apply through the YC listing as well, and send the note to the founder the same day.

The reasoning above is illustrative; the listing details are as shown on the company’s YC page on 15 October 2026. The same reading works for any listing: batch for age, team size for who reads, experience line for the real bar, equity range for room to negotiate.

A ten-company early-stage shortlist by Friday

Monday: open YC’s page for your city and note every company from the last four batches with a role near yours. Tuesday: repeat on Wellfound’s city page with the Early Stage tag in mind, and skip anything marked Growth Stage. Wednesday: cut the list to ten, keeping only companies whose product you can explain in one sentence. Thursday: apply to any posted roles and write to the founder at each, using their news and one result of yours. Friday: schedule follow-ups for the following week, and check the pages again, because at this stage a new founding role can appear and close inside a fortnight. Engineers will find a stage-specific version of this in AI job agents for seed-stage engineering roles.

How we chose

We compare tools on what their own public pages say, checked on the dates shown, and label every claim. How we compare tools.

FAQ

Early stage startup jobs

These are roles at companies that have raised a pre-seed, seed or Series A round, usually with a team small enough that a founder interviews every hire. They are listed on YC's job pages, on Wellfound, where companies carry an 'Early Stage' tag, and in Hacker News's monthly hiring thread. Many are filled before they are posted, so Backdoor and similar founder outreach reach the ones that never reach a board.

Series a startup jobs

A Series A company has usually found some traction and is hiring its first specialists and team leads, so its roles are more often posted, on a careers page or Wellfound, than at seed. Filter Wellfound by company and read the funding history, or check the company's own announcement. A note to the founder or the relevant team lead alongside the application still helps at this size.

Early stage startup job board

It depends on the stage you want. For seed, YC's job pages list roles only at YC-funded companies and show each one's batch, which tells you roughly how young it is. For Series A, Wellfound covers startups of all sizes, labels each as Early Stage or Growth Stage, and shows funding history. The Hacker News 'Who is hiring?' thread, posted monthly, carries notes written by people at the hiring company.

What is a series a startup

It is a startup that has raised its Series A, typically the first large round from venture investors after a seed round. Crunchbase News puts Series A and B rounds on average between $5 million and $30 million and calls them rounds for earlier-stage companies. Y Combinator's seed guide notes that none of these rounds is required, and some companies start with a Series A.

Where can i find seed stage startup jobs in london or new york

Start with YC's location pages for London and New York, where recent batches such as Summer 2026 and Fall 2025 mark the youngest companies, then Wellfound's city pages filtered to Early Stage. On 15 October 2026, Aspect and Sava had founding roles open in New York, and PRINCEPS and Lamb Labs had founding roles in London. Hiring changes weekly, so check each listing before you apply.

Sources checked

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