Applied AI Engineer

Valence; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Valence is seeking a Platform Engineer to design and operate the secure, scalable foundation powering Nadia innovations across enterprise teams. You’ll build shared control planes for trust, routing, LLM governance, and observability, enabling rapid product delivery with safety by default.

Join a fast-moving team delivering an AI-native platform for Fortune 500 customers, shaping production-grade standards, templates, and tooling while collaborating across engineering, security, and product to

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software engineering, distributed systems, infrastructure, or platform/SRE roles.
• Platform mindset with reusable primitives and standards that scale.
• Hands-on CI/CD, progressive delivery, rollback, observability, SLOs, and incident response.
• Cloud environments and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and orchestration.
• Security, privacy, and data-access controls at platform level.

Responsibilities

• Design and operate shared platform primitives used by multiple teams (authorization, routing, logging, observability, deploy patterns).
• Own reliability and change-safety systems (CI/CD gates, migration safety, progressive delivery, rollback automation, kill switches).
• Ship secure defaults and policy enforcement frameworks for data-access and auditability.
• Run global delivery controls: region pinning, residency-aware routing, cross-region config checks.
• Establish SLOs, synthetic checks, alerting standards, and incident runbooks.
• Build internal developer platform with templates and standard deploy/monitoring/auth patterns.
• Operate an AI-native engineering plane with governance and auditable execution outcomes.

Skills

Platform mindset

Reliability & change-safety

Cloud & deployment

Security & compliance awareness

Engineering excellence

Growth orientation

Communication

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

Valence has built the only first-to-market AI native coaching platform for enterprise, offering personalized, expert, and human-like guidance and support to any leader or employee. We’re not just talking about the future of work — we’re building it now, with the most innovative Fortune 500 companies across healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and technology.

Learn more about our work with Microsoft: Valence Brings AI Coaching More Deeply Into the Flow of Work with Microsoft 365

Our focus is on the problems that actually decide whether AI changes how organizations operate — the ones with no playbook, no obvious answers, and no guarantee of success. If you want to be part of the small group that defines how AI transforms the future at a global scale, this is your chance.

And this isn’t for everyone. We’re not looking for people who want predictability or incremental progress. We only want those who are restless at the edge of what’s possible, who get bored when things feel “done,” and who are driven to redefine what AI can mean for leaders, companies, and the world. Because at Valence, the work worth doing is the kind that redefines work itself.

The Role

As a Platform Engineer at Valence, you will build and operate the secure, reliable, and scalable foundation that lets every product and AI team ship Nadia innovations faster and with lower risk. Platform Engineering is Valence's force multiplier: we own the shared control planes for trust and safety, global access and routing, LLM governance, deployment automation, workload isolation, observability and SLOs, and AI-native engineering execution.

Your mandate is simple: increase shipping velocity and customer trust at the same time, by making the safe path the default path. You'll build the paved roads every team uses in production, and enforce minimum production standards through templates, CI/CD gates, scorecards, and time-bound exceptions, so every service is observable, reversible, and secure by default.

We don't expect any one candidate to check every technical box, but we do look for engineers who are eager to learn, iterate rapidly, and contribute across challenges that span reliability, security, global delivery, and developer experience.

About Valence

We're the only company pioneering leadership coaching for large enterprises in an AI-first way. Our mission is to transform how the world's biggest companies approach learning and development, helping teams work better together through AI-powered personalization that adapts to individual goals and organizational culture using the latest advances in machine learning and natural language processing.

We've been featured in Harvard Business Review, TIME, World Economic Forum, Financial Times, Forbes and an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private companies in America. Our clients represent the most diverse and sophisticated enterprise AI implementations globally, including Coca-Cola, Delta, Nestlé, General Mills, Schneider Electric, Deutsche Telekom, AstraZeneca, Prudential, CVS and Bristol Myers Squibb.

Working at Valence means you'll work directly with Fortune 500 technology leaders, building expertise through the most complex enterprise deployments while gaining insight into diverse organizational approaches to AI transformation. These aren't just any enterprise clients - they're the companies defining what AI-first business transformation looks like across every major industry.

What You'll Do

• Build the paved roads. Design and operate shared platform primitives used by multiple teams (authorization and routing guardrails, secure logging, rollout controls, observability, queue infrastructure, and the centralized LLM gateway) so teams build on standards instead of reinventing them.

• Make change safe by default. Own the reliability and change-safety systems that let the org move fast without breaking trust: CI/CD gates, migration safety patterns, progressive delivery, rollback automation, and kill switches.

• Enforce security at the platform layer. Ship secure defaults, policy enforcement frameworks, auditability, and data-access guard libraries so the safe path is the easy path.

• Run global delivery controls. Implement single-domain strategy, region pinning and routing, residency-aware behavior, and cross-region config consistency checks for enterprise customers worldwide.

• Raise the operational bar. Establish SLOs, synthetic checks, alerting standards, and incident runbooks and drills that drive faster detection and recovery.

• Build the internal developer platform. Create service templates, blessed internal-tool paths, and standard deploy, monitoring, and auth patterns that make the right thing the default thing.

• Operate an AI-native engineering plane. Build issue-to-PR automation infrastructure with governance, human-in-control workflows, and audit logs that convert signals into auditable, human-approved execution outcomes.

What We're Looking For

• Technical foundation: 8+ years of experience in software engineering, distributed systems, infrastructure, or platform/SRE roles, with a track record of building systems other teams depend on.

• Platform mindset: You build reusable primitives, not one-off features. You think in terms of paved roads, secure defaults, and standards that scale across many teams.

• Reliability and change-safety expertise: Hands‑on experience with CI/CD, progressive delivery, rollback and migration safety, observability, SLOs, and incident response.

• Cloud & deployment experience: Comfortable developing and operating services in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure) and working with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).

• Security & compliance awareness: Familiarity with implementing platform-level guardrails (authorization, auditability, data-access controls, and policy enforcement) in a privacy- and residency-conscious way.

• Engineering excellence: Strong software engineering skills, including writing maintainable code, debugging distributed systems, and collaborating in cross-functional teams.

• Growth orientation: Eagerness to tackle unfamiliar problems, learn new technologies, and shape our platform and culture.

• Communication: Ability to explain technical ideas clearly and work effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

What You'll Get

Ownership & Rapid Growth

• Outsized missions from day one, with direct responsibility for company-defining projects

• Work alongside the executive team with transparency into strategy and decision-making

• Influence on direction through real-time customer feedback and market insights

AI-First Operator

• Work directly with cutting‑edge AI models and next‑generation platforms

• Build expertise in enterprise AI implementation across Fortune 500 companies and multiple industries

• Establish yourself as a recognized leader among peers in shaping how AI transforms work at a global scale

Compensation

• Competitive salary including base + bonuses

• Comprehensive health coverage (medical, dental, vision) from day one

• Generous PTO, company-wide R&R shutdowns, and paid parental leave

• Retirement plan support for US and global employees

Equity

• Meaningful ownership in a venture‑backed company at a growth inflection point

• Financial upside that comes from scaling fast

• Top‑up grants as we scale and you deliver exceptional performance — your compensation grows alongside your impact

Top‑Performing Culture

• A culture built for top talent: intensity to win, growth without limits, and a team that solves hard problems and celebrates big wins together

Learn more about us and meetourteam here

Location and Work Environment

If candidates are based in NYC or Toronto they can work hybrid in our offices, otherwise this role can be remote. Candidates must be comfortable working with colleagues in different time zones (UK), and have valid travel documents without work authorization restrictions in the US.

Diversity and Inclusion

We are dedicated to creating a diverse and inclusive environment where everyone feels valued and supported. We encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds and offer accommodations upon request throughout the hiring process. If you have any questions, please reach out to Allison Langille, Head of People, at [e-mail].

Employment Verification & Commitment

We use third-party services to verify employment history, education, and other information relevant to your candidacy. Employment is contingent upon the successful completion of these verification checks. This is a full‑time role that requires a high level of focus, availability, and commitment. Employees may not hold concurrent full‑time employment with another organization while employed at Valence. Any outside consulting, advisory, freelance, or other professional work must be disclosed and approved in advance and must not interfere with job responsibilities, availability, performance, or create a conflict of interest - including risks related to confidentiality, intellectual property, or competition.

Valence takes candidate fraud serious. We verify identity, LinkedIn profiles, employment history, and references; any misrepresentation during the hiring process is grounds for withdrawing an offer or ending employment. All offers are contingent on successful completion of these checks.