By Lee Chong Ming
Publication Date: 2026-03-30 13:00:00
An Nvidia-backed startup is looking for “rebellious” engineers to help rebuild search for the AI era.
Exa, which builds search infrastructure for AI applications, said it is opening a Singapore office on Monday as part of its push into Asia-Pacific. Exa has only a handful of staff in Asia-Pacific, and plans to hire up to 10 engineers across backend, infrastructure, and product roles in the coming months.
In an exclusive interview with Business Insider, CEO Will Byrk said he is hiring “rebellious” engineers.
“Someone who doesn’t care about the status quo, how things were done in the past, can think from first principles about everything — that’s really important,” he said.
Search systems built for AI are still new, and they require rethinking how search works because humans and AI behave differently, he added.
“I don’t believe it when people say you can’t do something. So I think we want engineers who feel the same way,” Byrk said.
Byrk also said Exa prioritizes candidates’ values above all else, and the company is open to hiring junior and senior engineers.
“Do they really have passion for building search or building large-scale systems?” he said, adding that experience is “not as important.”
To assess candidates for their character, Exa flies them to San Francisco to work with the team for one to two days. Exa has about 80 employees globally and is actively…