AI Engineer

Stripe; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 127,000 - 235,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

401(k) plan

Medical, dental, and vision benefits

Wellness stipend

Job summary

Stripe in Chicago is seeking an AI Engineer to join the Solutions Architecture (SA) team and build production-quality tooling and automation that measurably boosts SA productivity. You will work closely with SA leadership, Product, and Engineering to deliver high-impact solutions that scale across engagements.

You’ll ship code daily, translate business needs into well-defined deliverables, and create internal tools and automated workflows that improve technical discovery, solution design, and

Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience shipping production systems.
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals: debugging, tracing across services, data flows.
• Experience building and deploying AI agents or LLM-powered tools.
• Experience scoping and delivering work with minimal oversight in fast-moving environments.
• Proficiency in at least two of Ruby, Node.js, Python, or Next.js.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP) including deployment, monitoring, and DevOps.
• Experience building internal tools or developer platforms.
• Ability to work across multiple codebases and tech stacks.
• Hands-on experience with AI/LLM in engineering workflow (not AI as crutch).
• Strong written and verbal communication to non-technical stakeholders.
• Comfort with ambiguity and iterative shipping.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Solutions Architects, SA leadership, Product, and Engineering to scope technical work from ambiguous business needs.
• Evaluate and integrate AI capabilities where they provide measurable productivity improvements.
• Architect and build internal tools, agents, and automated workflows that accelerate SA and manager productivity.
• Harden high-potential tools into scalable, production-grade solutions.
• Identify recurring friction in SA workflows and build repeatable solutions.
• Build demo environments, PoC applications, and technical assets for Stripe's strategic engagements.
• Document tools, architectures, and usage patterns for broad adoption.
• Debug and maintain backend systems across multiple codebases.

Skills

Ruby

Node.js

Python

AWS

GCP

AI/LLM tooling

Internal tools

Debugging distributed systems

Technical communication

Job description

About Stripe

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies—from the world's largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups—use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone's reach while doing the most important work of your career.

Who We Are

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies—from the world's largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups—use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone's reach while doing the most important work of your career.

About The Team

The Solutions Architecture (SA) organization helps Stripe's most strategic customers design and validate technical solutions that drive their business forward. Within SA, our team builds the tools, workflows, and custom technical assets that make the broader SA org more effective—turning individual ingenuity into org-wide capability.

We are looking for AI Engineers who are energized by working close to the business and the users we serve. You'll operate as an embedded, high-context engineer focused on the highest-leverage opportunities across the SA org—building production-quality tooling, supporting our most strategic engagements, and shipping automation that meaningfully improves how Solutions Architects work every day.

What You'll Do

As an AI Engineer, you'll be embedded directly with the Solutions Architecture team—building alongside them, deeply understanding their workflows, and shipping tools and automation that permanently change how they operate. Your measure of success is SA productivity: the engagements you've accelerated, the workflows you've transformed, and the tools you've built that the org adopts as default.

You’ll ship code daily. You’ll discover where SAs lose time and build high-impact solutions. You’ll take what works for one person and scale it to work for the org. And when our most strategic customer engagements need custom technical assets, you’ll build those too.

This is a role for someone who wants to work at the intersection of engineering and business impact—close to customers, close to revenue, and building for people you can see using your work every day.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Solutions Architects, SA leadership, Product, and Engineering to scope technical work and translate ambiguous business needs into well-defined deliverables
• Evaluate and integrate AI capabilities (LLMs, agents, workflow automation) where they provide genuine leverage—not for novelty, but for measurable productivity improvement
• Architect and build internal tools, agents, and automated workflows that accelerate SA and manager productivity across technical discovery, solution design, demoing, user engagements, territory/pipeline management, and product interlock
• Take high-potential tools and workflows built by SAs and managers and harden them into scalable, maintainable, production-grade solutions
• Identify patterns across SA workflows and proactively build solutions that address recurring friction
• Build custom demo environments, PoC applications, and technical assets for Stripe's most strategic customer engagements
• Document tools, architectures, and usage patterns so others can adopt and extend what you've built
• Debug, extend, and maintain backend systems across a variety of codebases and infrastructure

Minimum Requirements

• 4+ years of experience as an engineer shipping production systems
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals: you can debug a failing system, trace issues across services, and reason about data flows
• Experience building and deploying AI agents, LLM-powered tools, or workflow automation beyond basic prompt engineering
• Experience scoping and delivering work with minimal oversight in a fast-moving, cross-functional environment
• Proficiency in at least two of: Ruby, Node.js, Python, or Next.js
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP) including deployment, monitoring, and basic DevOps
• Experience building internal tools, developer platforms, or workflow automation
• Demonstrated ability to work across multiple codebases and technology stacks simultaneously
• Hands‑on experience using AI/LLM tools in your engineering workflow—you're fluent with AI‑assisted development but not dependent on it; you can reason through problems and debug without AI as a crutch
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; you can translate technical decisions for non-technical stakeholders and navigate cross‑functional collaboration naturally
• Comfort with ambiguity—you can take a loosely‑defined business problem, scope the engineering work, and ship iteratively without waiting for a perfect spec

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing systems that non‑engineers can build on top of or extend themselves (e.g., platforms, low‑code frameworks, template systems)
• Experience in a Solutions Engineering, Sales Engineering, or GTM Engineering role—or a product engineering role where you worked closely with customers or go‑to‑market teams
• Familiarity with Stripe's products, APIs, or the payments/fintech domain
• Experience integrating with third‑party platforms (Salesforce, Gong, etc.)
• Track record of building tools or systems that were adopted beyond your immediate team
• Background in consulting, professional services, or other roles that blend technical depth with business context

Who You Are

• You want to be close to the business. You're energized by seeing your work directly impact how a sales team wins a deal or how a customer succeeds.
• You're a pragmatic builder. You ship working solutions quickly, iterate based on real usage, and know when "good enough now" beats "perfect later." You'd rather show a working prototype today than present a roadmap deck next quarter.
• You're a software engineer by practice. You can architect systems, debug production issues, write clean code, and reason about tradeoffs. AI is a tool in your belt, not a substitute for engineering judgment.
• You're a pattern recognizer. When you build something that works for one person, you immediately see how it generalizes. You think in reusable systems, not one‑off scripts.
• You're thriving without a traditional product team structure. No PRDs landing in your lap, no dedicated PM, no sprint ceremonies. You identify the highest‑leverage problem, scope the work, and ship it. You're comfortable trading on‑call rotations and rigid processes for autonomy and impact.
• You're a strong communicator. You can partner with SAs who are domain experts, understand their workflows deeply enough to build great tools, and explain your technical choices to leadership.

In-office expectations

Office‑assigned Stripes in most of our locations are currently expected to spend at least 50% of the time in a given month in their local office or with users. This expectation may vary depending on role, team and location. For example, Stripes in Stripe Delivery Center roles in Mexico City, Mexico, Bengaluru, India, and Dublin, Ireland work 100% from the office. Also, some teams have greater in‑office attendance requirements, to appropriately support our users and workflows, which the hiring manager will discuss. This approach helps strike a balance between bringing people together for in‑person collaboration and learning from each other, while supporting flexibility when possible.

Pay and benefits

The annual US base salary range for this role is $126,600 - $235,300. For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings ("OTE") range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonuses target and annual base salary for the role. This salary range may be inclusive of several career levels at Stripe and will be narrowed during the interview process based on a number of factors, including the candidate’s experience, qualifications, and location. Applicants interested in this role and who are not located in the US may request the annual salary range for their location during the interview process.

Additional benefits for this role may include: equity, company bonus or sales commissions/bonuses; 401(k) plan; medical, dental, and vision benefits; and wellness stipends.

We look forward to hearing from you.

At Stripe, we're looking for people with passion, grit, and integrity. You're encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't precisely match the job description. Your skills and passion will stand out—and set you apart—especially if your career has taken some extraordinary twists and turns. At Stripe, we welcome diverse perspectives and people who think rigorously and aren't afraid to challenge assumptions. Join us.