How Andrew HunzekerHesed became Employee #1 at 10x Science

How Andrew HunzekerHesed became Employee #1 at 10x Science | Y Combinator

How Andrew HunzekerHesed became Employee #1 at 10x Science

October 30, 2026

·

by

Frank Stratton

Andrew HunzekerHesed spent years building software seen by millions of people — food delivery logistics, CPG stocking at Walmart, video streaming at Major League Baseball, and most recently serving as Principal Engineer at Grindr. The work was fun and visible, but the general software development lifecycle was starting to look the same everywhere: "Exec to Design to PM to Engineer, with ever-increasing velocity due to AI." Then he met the founders of 10x Science (W26) at a talent summit, and something shifted.

A conversation that didn't sound like every other one in tech

10x Science creates AI-native software for scientific data analysis, currently focused on proteomics and drug discovery with plans to expand across the life sciences. But what drew Andrew in wasn't a pitch deck. It was how the founders talked.

"I talked to David about the beauty of math and working from first principles, and Vishnu talked about music, the science of sound, and how inefficient generative AI can be," he says. "It had been years since I had talked to people in the technology space who were not completely AI-pilled and were instead talking about how the principles behind AI can be used to create solutions instead of merely wrapping the commercial foundation models."

The interview process was rigorous — a multi-day work trial where Andrew had full access to the founders and they had access to him. When it ended, he still wanted to keep working on the problem they had given him "because it was so intriguing and their passion for the work so infectious."

All hands on deck, even hands that just showed up

Andrew's first week at 10x Science tested whether the startup energy was real. An opportunity came up to pitch a top-ten pharma company on a solution to a problem the team didn't even know existed. They had three days to bring Andrew up to speed on the problem space, design a solution, build it, and package it for a Friday demo.

"The thing we built has become a cornerstone in our tooling and has had applications outside of the initial pitch session," he says. "Other places I have worked would have pushed my start date back in order to just handle it on their own, but at a startup it is all hands on deck, even if those hands just showed up."

Finding The Thing, not just scaling the thing

For Andrew, being Employee #1 means something specific. It's not about scaling challenges — he's quick to point out that "there are thousands of ex-FAANG engineers who can help your company scale." What excites him is the earlier, harder phase: "Figuring out not the technical problems associated with the thing, but the actual thing itself. Do you have a hand in making the thing, or just in the scaling of the thing? The Thing, that is what being early means to me."

That discovery work has taken him places a big-company engineering role never would. At 10x Science, his name has appeared on posters presented at scientific symposiums, and he has submitted work to the American Chemical Society.

The company is now transitioning from exploratory research to locking down features for paying customers, which Andrew calls "really exciting." His tools are deliberately simple — the command line, VS Code, and whichever AI model "is the most SOTA that week." He bounces between providers and avoids getting sucked into prompt-tweaking rituals.

Who should join

Andrew's advice for anyone considering an early-stage role is direct:

• "Let your ego go, roll up your sleeves, and help out."

• "Will you get rich? Probably not. Will you gain more experience in six months than you can in years at a big company? Yes."

• "Life is too short to worry too much about these things, and life is too long to live with regret."

If you want to work with smart people on hard scientific problems, ship to real customers in the life sciences, and have the agency to build what needs to be built in the best way you know how — 10x Science is hiring.

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#### Frank Stratton

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