Software Engineer, AI & Data Systems
$200,000–$280,000 year
On-siteSan Francisco, California, United States
San Francisco, California, United StatesOn-siteFull Time$200,000–$280,000 yearStartup
Full TimeStartup
Job Summary
Build and ship customer-facing products across backend, data, infrastructure, and frontend surfaces while designing and operating high-volume data pipelines that process massive amounts of information. Develop AI agents, agent harnesses, and developer tooling to support autonomous data collection and processing at scale. Own software systems end-to-end, making architecture decisions and communicating technical tradeoffs directly with founders and customers. Debug and operate production systems independently, improving reliability, observability, and security within a small, high-ownership startup environment.
Required Qualifications
- 1–6 years of professional experience in backend engineering, data engineering, product engineering, or AI systems
- Experience building and operating production systems end-to-end
- Experience owning systems from concept through deployment and ongoing operations
- Experience working in high-growth, talent-dense early-stage startup environments
- Experience building high-volume data pipelines
- Experience building AI agents, data systems, or identity/matching systems at scale
- Experience building customer-facing products and infrastructure
- Experience working with distributed systems and large-scale data
- Experience operating production systems with strong reliability and observability
- Strong ownership mentality with demonstrated independent execution
- Comfortable turning ambiguous problems into clear technical decisions
- Comfortable working directly with founders and customers
- Strong product engineering mindset
- Comfortable operating in a highly autonomous startup environment
- Strong backend engineering fundamentals
- Strong Python engineering experience
- Experience building APIs and backend services
- Experience designing and working with data models
- Experience with distributed systems
- Experience with cloud infrastructure
- Experience building production AI systems
- Experience working with LLMs
- Experience with AI agents or agent frameworks
- Experience with large-scale data processing
- Experience designing reliable production systems
- Strong understanding of scalability, reliability, and observability
- Experience with production debugging and system operations
- Strong software architecture and systems thinking
- Strong computer science and software engineering fundamentals
- Ability to reason about system tradeoffs and architecture decisions
- Strong computer science, distributed systems, and software engineering fundamentals
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related technical field preferred
- CS degree from a strong/top technical university preferred
- Strong computer science, distributed systems, and software engineering fundamentals
- Equivalent practical engineering experience may be considered
- Exceptional technical ownership
- Strong product judgment
- Strong analytical and problem-solving ability
- Deep technical curiosity
- Comfortable working with ambiguity
- Strong communication skills
- Comfortable working directly with founders
- Comfortable working directly with customers
- High execution velocity
- Strong attention to system reliability and engineering quality
- Bias toward experimentation and continuous improvement
- Strong ability to reason from first principles
- Strong decision-making ability with incomplete information
- Low-ego collaborative mentality
- Strong builder mentality
- Comfortable operating independently
- Comfortable using modern AI tools to accelerate development
- Strong engineering judgment despite aggressive AI-assisted development
- Comfortable working in a small, high-performing startup team
- Willingness to work five days per week in San Francisco
Desired Qualifications
- Experience at Seed–Series B startups preferred
- Experience building agent harnesses or AI developer tools preferred
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