Member of Technical Staff, Applied AI

Sycamore Labs, Inc.; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Sycamore is building the trusted agent operating system for the enterprise. We empower Fortune 500 companies to build, deploy, and orchestrate AI agents that perform real operational work with strong security and control.

You will own the full product loop—discovery, implementation, testing, deployment, and production support—delivering solutions that scale from customer-specific needs to reusable capabilities across deployments.

Qualifications

• 5–12 years of software engineering experience, with exceptions for exceptional people.
• Strong fundamentals across product design, APIs, data modeling, distributed systems, testing, and production debugging.
• Evidence you shipped and operated meaningful software, not just prototypes.
• Product judgment to identify real problems and balance customer-specific vs reusable work.
• Comfort across UI, backend, data, agent behavior, integrations, and deployment.
• Security-minded approach to enterprise data, permissions, credentials, and audits.
• AI-native: using coding agents and modern models while owning the architecture.
• Clear communication and high EQ with CTOs, operators, security teams, and engineers.
• Comfort with startup ambiguity, fast feedback loops, broad ownership, and travel.

Responsibilities

• Turn ambiguous enterprise problems into clear designs, working software, and measurable outcomes.
• Build product surfaces for agent conversations, tasks, progress, approvals, artifacts, and workflows.
• Design APIs and relational data models that accurately reflect the customer’s domain.
• Build agent instructions, tool interfaces, connector interactions, and durable workflow steps with clear permission and failure behavior.
• Navigate authentication, authorization, tenant isolation, data handling, observability, and change management.
• Test realistic user journeys beyond isolated units or happy-path demos.
• Travel to customer sites when working alongside users accelerates discovery, delivery, or adoption.

Skills

Software engineering

Distributed systems

APIs

Data modeling

Production debugging

Job description

Build with enterprise customers, own the path to production, and turn repeated lessons into a better product.

About Sycamore

Sycamore is building the trusted agent operating system for the enterprise. Our platform helps companies build, deploy, and orchestrate AI agents that take on real operational work, with the security and control large organizations need.

We are a small, engineering-led team working directly with Fortune 500 enterprises. We have raised $65M from Coatue and Lightspeed, along with other investors and industry leaders.

The role

The simplest way to describe this role: you are the engineer in the customer room and the product engineer who ships what the room needs. You will map how an important workflow works today, find where an agent can create a measurable outcome, and build the application end to end, from the user experience and data model through agent tools, integrations, permissions, approval points, and the operational controls needed to run safely.

You own the full loop: discovery, implementation, realistic testing, deployment, production debugging, adoption, and iteration. Customer-specific product work belongs with you, and when the same runtime, connector, memory, or deployment need appears repeatedly, you work with Core AI or Infrastructure to turn it into a reusable capability rather than maintaining parallel custom implementations.

What you will do

• Turn ambiguous enterprise problems into clear technical designs, working software, and measurable outcomes.
• Build product surfaces for agent conversations, tasks, progress, approvals, artifacts, and operational workflows.
• Design APIs and relational data models that accurately represent the customer’s domain and remain understandable as the product evolves.
• Build agent instructions, tool interfaces, connector interactions, and durable workflow steps with explicit permission and failure behavior.
• Navigate enterprise requirements around authentication, authorization, tenant isolation, data handling, deployment, observability, and change management.
• Test realistic user journeys rather than stopping at isolated units or happy-path demos.
• Travel to customer sites when working alongside users will accelerate discovery, delivery, or adoption.

The environment you will work in

We use automated tests, coding agents, traces, evaluations, and production feedback as part of everyday engineering.

This is context, not a checklist. We do not require previous experience with every language, framework, or vendor in our stack. Strong engineers who understand systems, learn quickly, and have shipped production software can become effective here without matching our tools one for one.

What we are looking for

• 5-12 years of software engineering experience. We will make exceptions for exceptional people in either direction.
• Strong software fundamentals across product design, APIs, data modeling, distributed systems, testing, and production debugging.
• Evidence that you personally shipped and operated meaningful software, rather than stopping at prototypes or delegating the production work.
• Product judgement. You can find the real problem behind a request, choose a useful first version, and decide what should remain customer‑specific versus become reusable.
• Comfort moving across user interfaces, backend services, data, agent behavior, integrations, and deployment when the outcome requires it.
• A security‑minded approach to enterprise data, permissions, credentials, approvals, and auditability.
• AI‑native. You use coding agents and modern models as a force multiplier while still owning the architecture, understanding the code, and explaining important decisions.
• Clear communication and high EQ. You can work with a customer’s CTO, operators, security team, and engineers without losing technical depth.
• Comfort with startup ambiguity, fast feedback loops, broad ownership, and regular customer travel.

Former founders, early product engineers, and forward‑deployed engineers often do well in this role when they have retained real code and production ownership. That background is a signal, not a requirement.

What this role is not

• It is not a pre‑sales role that stops at a demo or architecture diagram.
• It is not a solutions role that hands requirements to another engineering team.
• It is not an ML research role focused on training foundation models.
• It is not a narrow role defined by one programming language or layer of the stack.
• It is not custom development without product judgment; repeated needs should improve the platform.
• A 30‑minute introductory conversation.
• Two 60‑minute technical interviews, one focused on systems design and one on coding.
• A take‑home assignment where you build and present a real solution using the tools you would use on the job.
• Work on AI systems that move from enterprise problems to production outcomes quickly.
• Own the complete path from workflow discovery through adoption.
• Shape both individual deployments and the product used across customers.
• Join early enough to define how the engineering team operates and grows.
• Receive competitive cash compensation and meaningful equity in the company you are helping build.

Hard problems, real impact

Trust architectures, memory systems, multi‑agent coordination. The foundational layer that makes AI agents work in production.

Small team, high ownership

Every engineer shapes the product and the culture. No layers of process between you and the work that matters.

Backed by the best

$65M from Coatue, Lightspeed, Abstract Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, 8VC, and notable industry angels.

Grow with us

Competitive compensation, meaningful equity, and a genuine focus on your growth as the company scales.