Platform Engineer — Desktop / OS Specialist

Poly; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Poly, based in San Francisco, is seeking a Platform Engineer to enhance their intelligent file storage solution. You'll be an integral part of a small team, focusing on cloud architecture and AI improvements. Ideal candidates should have expertise in cross-platform development and a passion for Rust.

This role emphasizes collaboration and independent work in a diverse environment. Candidates must be excited to work in-person five days a week in SoMa. Poly offers a unique opportunity to contribute to a groundbreaking product.

Qualifications

• Experience in developing cross-platform applications with an understanding of OS APIs.
• Strong enthusiasm for Rust as the primary programming language.
• Interest in data modeling and fault tolerance.

Responsibilities

• Shape cloud architecture for efficient file storage.
• Improve AI architecture for enhanced user experience.

Skills

Core software design

Cross-platform native application development

Rust programming language

AI modeling

Data modeling

Cache design

Collaborative skills

Tools

Tauri

Electron

Job description

About Us

Poly is building a better file storage platform for everyone. We've raised $8M from YC, Bloomberg Beta, Felicis, Figma Ventures, AI Grant, and more, and we're looking to grow our founding team of superstar builders and dreamers.

Poly’s intelligent file system is a desktop and web application that lets you store and browse your files with the help of a powerful multimodal AI. An easy way to wrap your head around it is to check out a demo from Abhay.

We are adamant that Poly is the future way to store files for everyone because:

• Our product is intelligent -- all your files are indexed and searchable with an AI that can find and even sort and organize your files, search by image and many other file types, and soon ask questions about your files and watch as an AI system references your own files to give an answer.
• We’re maximally multimodal. We support any audio, video, document, office file, slide deck, text file, PDF, and a whole lot more. We even support saving web links and youtube videos to your Poly file system and asking the AI about them.
• We’re completely, 100% cross-platform -- Our product looks identical across web and desktop, with zero compromises in the UI/UX, and all your files always available and up-to-date.
• Our product improves every 2 days, not every 2 years -- Finder and File Explorer haven't changed in years or decades because they're linked to OS upgrade cycles. Our product ships updates every day and can add all kinds of features, fixes, and file type support at light speed.
• Many, many more reasons -- deep folder searching, beautiful view modes, extensible metadata, ergonomics, public sharing, and so much more.

About You

We are looking to grow from a team of three (we've accomplished a lot as just two engineers and one designer!) to a clan of around eight, so you'll be anywhere from engineer #3 to #7. You'll be tasked with bringing Poly to life as a robust platform, shaping our cloud architecture to store files at breathtaking speed and scale, and improving our AI architecture to become the "search engine for your life".

Specifically, in a platform engineer (desktop OS specialist), we are looking for the following concrete skills and prior experience:

• Core software design and architectural considerations in developing a cross‑platform native application, including awareness of OS APIs/FFI bindings for aspects like networking, caching, notifications, files, and windowing. Experience with desktop web frameworks (Tauri, Electron) is highly encouraged.
• Experience or significant enthusiasm for the Rust language, which comprises our entire stack from front‑end to back. Our platform is based on a very large, robust shared library that is compiled on web, desktop, and cloud to create an unparalleled DevEx for building a product as complex as Poly. Poly's codebase is all welded metal, no glue.
• Interest in data modeling, cache design, and local‑first systems that require challenging fault tolerance and non‑blocking bi‑directional schemas. Ability to reason about runtime characteristics, state management, and risk‑to‑performance trade‑offs.
• In this role, experience with AI modeling or training is not required, though it is still highly desirable.
• An extreme appetite for learning that you've honed through recursive self‑improvement. You should be able to demonstrate an exceptional aptitude for automating your own development processes.
• You thrive in independent, inter‑disciplinary environments, and you are skilled at collaborating across domains and for productively engaging with people of all kinds.
• You are willing to leave judgments about gender, race, creed, background, belief, or politics for outside of the workplace so that we can focus on building the world's best file storage platform for everyone.
• You are capable of (and excited to) work in‑person 5‑days a week in SoMa, San Francisco.