Staff AI Engineer

As a Staff AI Engineer , you’ll shape the technical direction of the intelligence layer—defining the architecture, standards, and roadmap required to build highly reliable AI agents for enterprise environments. This role is designed for an experienced engineer who combines deep technical judgment, strong product instincts, and organizational influence . You’ll work across the engineering organization to drive technical decisions and build systems that create compounding impact over time. Location: San Francisco, CA — Hybrid Compensation: Up to $310,000 base + equity What You’ll Own Define and Drive Technical Direction Set the architectural direction for agentic systems and the broader intelligence layer Identify and resolve systemic gaps that limit reliability, scalability, or product velocity Make high-leverage technical bets and drive them through implementation Establish evaluation standards, observability infrastructure, and reliability frameworks at scale Build and Ship High-Impact Systems Own complex, cross-cutting product areas end-to-end Design agent orchestration and retrieval systems capable of handling enterprise-grade complexity Lead the evolution of LLM infrastructure, including models, prompts, guardrails, evaluations, and feedback loops Prototype, validate, and harden novel approaches before scaling them across the engineering organization Drive Organizational Leverage Partner with Engineering leadership, Product, and Design to shape the AI roadmap Create reusable platforms, patterns, and tooling that multiply engineering velocity Mentor and develop the next generation of senior engineers Translate long-term product vision into concrete technical strategies Represent and Advance the Field Stay at the frontier of LLMs, agents, and applied AI research , rapidly evaluating and adopting technologies that can create meaningful impact Build internal knowledge and shared understanding around AI system design Help establish the organization as a technical leader in enterprise and vertical AI Who You Are You’re a senior technical leader who has built your skills for an AI-native world. These principles resonate with you: Technical depth with organizational influence: You lead through expertise and technical credibility rather than authority Systems thinker: You understand second-order effects and design systems with the bigger picture in mind Strong product judgment: You prioritize ruthlessly while keeping customer outcomes at the center Multiplier: You make engineers and teams around you more effective Principled pragmatism: You know when to push technical boundaries and when to ship what works End-to-end ownership: You take responsibility for outcomes, not simply deliverables Experience We care more about capability and trajectory than years on a resume, but strong candidates will typically bring: 8+ years of production software engineering experience , including 3+ years leading complex AI/ML systems Deep expertise in TypeScript, Python, and distributed systems Proven experience shipping LLM-powered products at enterprise scale Experience defining evaluation infrastructure and reliability standards for AI systems Deep knowledge of retrieval architectures, RAG, vector databases, and embedding pipelines Hands-on experience with modern LLM APIs and agent frameworks, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, LangGraph, or similar technologies Experience influencing technical direction across multiple teams or product areas Track record of mentoring senior engineers and strengthening engineering culture What Should Excite You Enterprise-grade reliability: Building AI systems professionals can depend on Human-in-the-loop design: Understanding when to automate and when expert judgment should remain involved Nuanced evaluation: Creating evaluation systems for workflows where judgment and context matter Explainability: Making AI outputs and agent reasoning transparent and trustworthy Complex domains: Solving difficult problems involving compliance and enterprise rigor while maintaining speed Shipping daily value: Building agent experiences customers actively rely on Benefits Comprehensive health and wellness benefits Flexible time off and work schedules Technology reimbursements 401(k) plan Twice-yearly in-person offsites across the U.S. Wellness benefits starting on your first day Show more Show less