AI Engineer

Parasail; San Mateo (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Mentorship with CEO

Equity potential

Competitive compensation

Startup culture

Hybrid work

Job summary

Parasail is seeking a hungry, creative engineer who thrives in a high-trust, high-velocity environment. You’ll turn bold ideas—from voice and real-time AI to new LLM-driven features—into working prototypes in days.

You’ll operate inside our product and engineering organization, collaborating directly with the team to ensure what you build is not just exciting, but also aligns with our long-term architecture and customer needs.

Qualifications

• Proficiency in Python and/or JavaScript/TypeScript.
• Hands-on experience with AI systems including LLMs, embeddings, vector DBs, real-time pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Rapidly prototype AI-powered workflows and tools, incorporating LLMs, embeddings, real-time audio/voice, API integrations, and prompt engineering.
• Lead experimental build cycles from hypothesis to working proof-of-concept to actionable insights.
• Collaborate closely with product and engineering to translate prototypes into viable product features.
• Ensure alignment with platform architecture; seek guidance before integrating prototypes into production systems.
• Navigate open-ended engineering problems with creative, experimental solutions.
• Share learnings and code artifacts to accelerate team-wide innovation.

Skills

Python

JavaScript/TypeScript

LLMs

APIs

Vector databases

Real-time pipelines

Prototyping

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Parasail is redefining AI infrastructure by enabling seamless deployment across a distributed network of GPUs, optimizing for cost, performance, and flexibility. Our mission is to empower AI developers with a fast, cost-efficient, and scalable cloud experience—free from vendor lock-in and designed for the next generation of AI workloads.

We move fast, stay close to our customers, and ship products that make a real difference for AI developers. This role is part of that mission.

About the Role

We’re looking for a hungry, creative engineer who thrives in a high-trust, high-velocity environment. You’ll be the one taking bold ideas—from voice and real-time AI to new LLM-driven features—and turning them into working prototypes in days. You’ll operate inside our product and engineering organization, collaborating directly with the team to ensure what you build is not just exciting, but also aligns with our long-term architecture and customer needs.

This is an engineering role through and through, but with the freedom to explore, test, and build at startup speed.

Responsibilities

• Rapidly prototype AI-powered workflows and tools, incorporating LLMs, embeddings, real-time audio/voice, API integrations, and prompt engineering
• Lead experimental build cycles from hypothesis to working proof-of-concept to actionable insights
• Collaborate closely with product and engineering to translate prototypes into viable product features
• Ensure alignment with platform architecture; seek guidance before integrating prototypes into production systems
• Navigate open-ended engineering problems with creative, experimental solutions
• Share learnings and code artifacts to accelerate team-wide innovation

What You Bring

• Proficiency in Python and/or JavaScript/TypeScript and ability to quickly learn new tools and frameworks
• Hands-on experience with AI systems including LLMs, API-based embeddings, vector DBs, and real-time pipelines (e.g., audio/STT-TTS)
• A bias toward action—you build, ship, iterate, and learn
• Demonstrated creativity: thinking in prototypes, not decks
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, particularly in technical cross-functional settings
• Past experience in startups, innovation labs, or "zero-to-one" product environments

Qualifications (Preferred)

• Familiarity working on AI infrastructure or backend systems, such as LLM pipelines, APIs, cloud-native services, and container orchestration
• Comfort navigating ambiguity and working across teams with minimal direction
• Experience contributing to open-source projects or public-facing engineering work

Why Join Parasail

• Direct mentorship and visibility with our CEO, who is heavily involved in product and technical strategy
• Real ownership over high-leverage projects that shape product direction and customer experience
• A culture that marries engineering rigor with experimental agility
• The opportunity to influence the AI compute infrastructure shaping next-generation workloads
• Competitive compensation with meaningful equity, benefits, and a high-trust work environment