HumanLayer is an API and SDK that lets AI agents contact humans for feedback, input, and approvals. Our customers use HumanLayer as a building block in AI agents that safely and reliably do risky things like manage cloud infrastructure and database migrations.

Our mission is to enable the safe deployment of AI systems by making human oversight a seamless part of any AI workflow. We're looking for passionate builders who want to shape the future of human-AI collaboration.

Our Hacker News Launch reached over 350 points and almost 200 comments, and TechCrunch Highlighted HumanLayer as a top 4 Enterprise AI startup in the F24 batch

One day in the not-too-distant future, people look back and point to an AI product or experience and say "that was the first thing that kind of felt like AGI". We believe a tool like HumanLayer will play a significant role in making that experience happen.

Here's what a few YC Founders had to say after trying HumanLayer:

Ever since I got hands-on with HumanLayer, I’m asking my whole team to think more about Agentic AI workflows - I used to think agents were not worth the effort to get them to production-grade reliability, but now I'm stoked on what is possible when you bring humans into the loop

Vaibhav Gupta, Founder @ Boundary (YC W23)

Hot take: If you're serious about AI you don't want someone making the "hard AI parts go away"

You want someone making the NON CORE PARTS go away so ALL YOU DO is work on the hard parts.

This is why I'm excited to try @humanlayer_dev

Amir Elaguizy, Founder @ CrateJoy (YC S13)

At HumanLayer, we’re on a mission to change how teams build software with AI. If we had a motto it would be “no vibes allowed” - we believe that AI agent-enabled coding is a deeply technical engineering craft, and we’re building CodeLayer to unlock it at scale.

CodeLayer is the best way to get AI to solve hard problems in complex codebases. We help CTOs and VPEs drive the transition to 99% AI-written code in their engineering orgs. Our MRR is growing 100% MoM, and we’re looking for a founding engineer to help us accelerate customer onboarding and product delivery.

You…

• Work across the entire stack - frontend apps, backend services, native executables, infrastructure, CI
• Have deep experience building in the Typescript ecosystem. We use it across the entire stack - frontend, backend, native executables, infrastructure-as-code.
• Ship like an engineer, think like a product owner. You have deep empathy for users and are dedicated to creating a world-class user experience.
• Strong in CS fundamentals - operating systems, networking, data structures.
• You’re a 99th-percentile Claude Code or Codex user
• You know Postgres/MySQL like the back of your hand
• Love working with customers to solve their problems. Expect to be forward-deployed to help onboard new customers.
• Enjoy hotkeymaxxing - vim, superhuman, RTS games, etc.
• Are familiar with auth’n/z - OAuth 2.0, etc.
• Are located in SF or willing to relocate

We:

• Work 70 hours/week in-person in SF (Marina/Russian Hill)
• Are growing rapidly and onboarding design partners. We grew 100% last month and expect to do it again.
• Have raised > 3M from YC, Pioneer Fund, and angels including Guillermo Rauch.
• Believe you should make it run, make it right, make it fast. Our #1 goal is deliver value for developers. Refactor after patterns emerge

Our tech stack includes:

• Backend: Golang, Rust
• Frontend: TypeScript, React, Next.js
• Infrastructure: AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform
• DevOps: GitHub Actions, Flux, Prometheus/Grafana
• AI/ML: GPT, Gemini, Claude, BAML