Lead, Desktop Engineering for AI-Driven DevTools

Cursor; California (MO); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Cursor is seeking a leader to drive the Desktop team, owning the product and engineering experience that millions of developers rely on daily. You will oversee the Cursor desktop application UI, core features, and client-side architecture, collaborating with product, design, infrastructure, and platforms to deliver a fast, stable user experience.

This role emphasizes shaping technical architecture, improving developer experience, and steering ambitious, fast-moving roadmaps across

Qualifications

• You have led engineering teams building high-performance web or desktop apps.
• Strong product instincts and a track record of shipping polished, user-facing software.
• Experience balancing execution speed with long-term technical quality
• Strong partnership skills across engineering, product, design, and infrastructure/platform teams.
• You care deeply about performance, reliability, and developer experience, and have an eye for elegant systems design.
• You have strong software engineering fundamentals and enjoy getting into the details—you can review a PR, debug a memory leak, or evaluate an architectural proposal with equal confidence.
• You thrive in environments that are fast-moving, collaborative, and product-focused.
• You make good calls in the gray area: weighing stability, performance, velocity, and user experience when there isn’t a single "right" answer.
• You're excited to push the limits of what’s possible in AI-driven developer tools.

Responsibilities

• Own the execution and quality of the Cursor desktop client across UI, features, and architecture
• Partner closely with product, design, and platform teams to deliver cross-cutting user experiences spanning agents and core app workflows.
• Set a high bar for engineering excellence, performance, reliability, and maintainability in a product used daily by millions of developers.
• Supporting a team shipping features like async subagents, agent multitasking, a better plan mode, improved browser or computer use, and a strong local<>cloud story.
• Hire and growing the team: sourcing, interviewing, and closing top fullstack talent.

Job description

Cursor is seeking a leader to drive the Desktop team, owning the product and engineering experience that millions of developers rely on daily. You will oversee the Cursor desktop application UI, core features, and client-side architecture, collaborating with product, design, infrastructure, and platforms to deliver a fast, stable user experience.

This role emphasizes shaping technical architecture, improving developer experience, and steering ambitious, fast-moving roadmaps across