Chief Engineer (Staff Chief)

raise-gtm

San Francisco (CA)

On-site

USD 250,000 - 400,000

Full time

14 hours ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Equity

On-site working arrangement

Job summary

AI Company in San Francisco is seeking Chief Engineers to own technical domains with hands-on coding and architectural leadership. You will work directly with the founders to shape the next generation of AI-powered financial services.

This is a senior, non-management track focused on technical credibility and impact across product and platform. You’ll guide engineers, set standards, and drive an AI-native engineering culture.

Qualifications

6-14 years of software engineering at senior level.
Experience in a high-growth startup, ideally Series A to C.
Own critical systems end-to-end, from 0 to 1.
Hands-on experience with LLM-powered agents.
Strong fundamentals across the stack and architecture.
Proficiency in Python, Node.js and React.
Ability to make independent architectural decisions.
Product-minded with business impact.
Daily use of frontier AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor.

Responsibilities

Own a domain end-to-end, combining hands-on coding with architectural leadership.
Design systems and set engineering standards for your domain.
Write production code and drive technical decisions.
Lead an engineering pod with autonomy and responsibility.
Work directly with founders and participate in weekly leadership discussions.
Partner with a Domain Product Manager to shape priorities and outcomes.
Mentor engineers and leads while avoiding a purely people-focused role.
Champion an AI-native engineering culture in the team.

Skills

Staff/Principal

LLM-powered agents

Python

Node.js

React

AI systems

Independent architecture

Product mindset

frontier AI tools

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

Job description

AI Company | San Francisco, CA | On-site

We're partnering with a high-growth, venture-backed AI company that is transforming how community banks and credit unions deliver financial services across the United States.

The business is building an advanced agentic AI platform that enables financial institutions to deliver autonomous, intelligent customer experiences across voice, chat and digital channels.

This isn't another early-stage AI company selling demos. The business has real enterprise revenue, nearly 100 financial institution customers, reaches more than 10 million people across the US and is already cash-flow positive.

We are well funding and have significant market demand, the company is investing in its next phase of growth and looking to bring exceptional engineering talent into its leadership team.

We're looking for Chief Engineers to take ownership of critical technology domains, work directly with the founders and help define the next generation of AI-powered financial services.

This is an opportunity for an exceptional engineer who wants the autonomy, influence and technical challenge of a senior leadership position without stepping away from building.

The opportunity

Chief Engineer is the company's most senior individual technical leadership track.

You’ll own a technical domain end-to-end, combining hands-on engineering with architectural leadership and responsibility for the performance of your engineering pod.

This is not a traditional management position. You’ll be expected to design systems, write production code, make important technical decisions and set the engineering standard through your own work.

You’ll also:

Lead an engineering pod with significant technical autonomy and ownership.

Work directly with the founders and participate in a weekly engineering leadership council.

Partner closely with a Domain Product Manager to shape priorities and deliver measurable outcomes.

Own architecture, implementation, code quality and technical direction across your domain.

Guide and develop engineers and technical leads without becoming a purely people-focused manager.

Champion an AI-native engineering culture, using tools such as Claude Code and Cursor to dramatically increase engineering productivity.

The philosophy is simple: leadership through technical credibility, not headcount.

The engineering organisation is deliberately designed around experienced, high-leverage engineers who use AI to accelerate what they can build and deliver.

Potential areas of ownership

There are several critical engineering domains available, with opportunities aligned to your experience and strengths.

These include:

AI Intelligence & Runtime: Core AI architecture, knowledge systems, retrieval, evaluation and the data flywheel that enables agents to reason and continuously improve.

Conversational AI: Building the intelligent agents customers interact with across voice and chat, alongside an AI-first contact centre.

Agent Integrations & Computer Use: Enabling AI agents to interact with and take meaningful action within complex enterprise and financial systems.

AI Outcomes & Reliability: Turning AI interactions into measurable business outcomes while ensuring platform performance, scalability and reliability.

Data & Fraud Intelligence: Developing shared data infrastructure and cross-institution fraud detection capabilities.

Agent Development Platform: Building the infrastructure that enables internal teams and enterprise customers to develop, deploy and manage AI agents.

AI-Native Consumer Banking: Creating a new generation of banking experiences where AI can understand customer needs and take action on their behalf.

What we're looking for

We're interested in exceptional Staff or Principal-level engineers who combine deep technical expertise with the ability to independently take complex projects from concept to production.

Ideally, you’ll bring:

6-14 years of software engineering experience, operating at Staff, Principal or equivalent level.

Experience within a high-growth startup, ideally one that has scaled through Series A to C and has fewer than 500 employees.

A proven track record of owning and building critical systems or products end-to-end, particularly from 0 to 1.

Hands-on production experience developing LLM-powered agents, ideally conversational AI, voice AI or complex agentic workflows.

Strong engineering fundamentals and the ability to work across the stack.

Proficiency in Python, Node.js and React.

The ability to operate independently, make sound architectural decisions and execute without extensive direction.

A strong product mindset, understanding the business impact of the technology being built.

Daily, practical use of frontier AI tools such as Claude Code and Cursor to increase engineering output and effectiveness.

Particularly interesting backgrounds

Engineers who have joined startups early and helped scale technology through periods of significant growth.

Technical founders who have remained hands-on while building and scaling products.

Engineers who have owned mission-critical platforms and made difficult architectural decisions.

Individuals who are genuinely excited about the possibilities of agentic AI and its application to real-world problems.

Technology

Core stack:

Python

Node.js

React

LLMs and agentic AI frameworks

Claude Code, Cursor and other frontier AI development tools

Strong engineering fundamentals and the ability to adapt to a rapidly evolving AI landscape are more important than experience with any single framework.

Why consider this opportunity?

A proven business, not an AI experiment. The company has established enterprise customers, meaningful revenue and is already cash-flow positive.

Exceptional technical ownership. You’ll have responsibility for an entire technology domain and the freedom to shape its direction.

Direct access to founders. You’ll work closely with the founders and have a meaningful voice in company-wide technical decisions.

Real-world impact. The platform is already reaching millions of people and transforming how financial institutions serve their customers.

A genuinely AI-native engineering environment. Join a team that embraces frontier AI tools and is rethinking how exceptional engineering teams operate.

A compelling growth opportunity. With $30M in Series A funding and strong demand, the company is entering an exciting phase of expansion.

Compensation & logistics