Product Engineer

Cognition; Town of Tonawanda (NY); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Cognition in the Town of Tonawanda is seeking a full-stack engineer to build innovative AI tools. This role involves owning the design and delivery of product experiences that developers will love, ensuring quality throughout the development process.

The ideal candidate will have strong engineering skills and a background in Python, TypeScript, and React. You will work in a dynamic and collaborative environment where user feedback directly influences product direction.

Qualifications

• Strong engineering skills with a natural instinct for product quality.
• Genuine understanding of developer workflows and frustrations.
• Experience with Python, TypeScript, and React in production-grade products.
• Ability to make sound product decisions independently.
• Attention to detail in UX and design, especially micro-interactions.
• Experience building developer tools or IDEs.

Responsibilities

• Own features end-to-end from the first line of code to user feedback.
• Craft interfaces that are performant and user-friendly.
• Define interaction patterns for developers working alongside AI agents.
• Work directly on agent infrastructure and the core agent loop.
• Solve engineering challenges inherent in developer experiences.
• Ship across IDE, web, and CLI products efficiently.

Skills

Full-stack engineering depth

Developer empathy

Python proficiency

TypeScript proficiency

React proficiency

Independent product judgment

UX and Design Obsession

Developer tools experience

Relevant industry experience

Degree from a top-tier university

Education

BS, MS, or equivalent in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering

Job description

Who We Are

We are an applied AI lab building end-to-end software agents. We're the team behind Devin, the first AI software engineer, and Windsurf, an AI-native IDE. These products represent our vision for AI that doesn't just assist engineers, but works alongside them as a genuine teammate.

Our team is small and talent-dense: world‑class competitive programmers, former founders, and researchers from the frontier of AI, including Scale AI, Palantir, Cursor, Google DeepMind, and others.

Role Mission

AI coding is a more mature and competitive market than it was two years ago. User expectations have risen sharply: developers now expect first‑minute magic, polished experiences, and a consistently high quality bar across every surface they touch. Meeting that bar across an IDE, a web product, and a CLI requires engineers who can own the full experience, not just the implementation.

This role exists for engineers who build with taste. You'll make product decisions, push through technical walls, and ship experiences that developers love, without waiting for a PM or designer to define the problem for you. The best product engineers at frontier AI companies are the ones who feel the gap between what exists and what should exist, and then close it. That's what we're looking for.

What You'll Accomplish

• Ship Product and Talk to Users: Own features end to end, from the first line of code to the conversation with the developer who uses it. User feedback directly shapes what you build next.
• Build Performant and Beautiful Experiences: Craft interfaces across our IDE, web, and CLI surfaces that feel fast, focused, and effortless. Quality is not a final pass; it's built into how you work.
• Set the Standard for Agent UX: Define interaction patterns for how developers work alongside AI agents. This is new territory with no established playbook. You'll create the conventions that others will follow.
• Build the Agent and Agent Harness: Work directly on Devin and the core agent infrastructure that powers it. This means building the agent loop, tool use, and the harness that lets Devin operate reliably across real‑world tasks.
• Punch Through Technical Walls: The best developer experiences often require solving hard engineering problems. You won't hand those off; you'll solve them.
• Move Fast Across Surfaces: Ship across our IDE, web, and CLI products. Context‑switch quickly and maintain a high quality bar across all of them simultaneously.

Exceptional Candidates Have Demonstrated

• Full‑stack engineering depth: Strong engineering skills with a natural instinct for product quality; you notice when something is off and you fix it.
• Developer empathy: Genuine understanding of developer workflows, frustrations, and what delightful tooling actually feels like.
• Python, TypeScript, and React proficiency: Experience with all three in complex, production‑grade products.
• Independent product judgment: The ability to make sound product decisions without needing extensive process or sign‑off.
• UX and Design Obsession: You sweat the details others overlook: micro‑interactions, transitions, response times, empty states, because you know that magical product experiences are built from hundreds of small decisions done right.
• Developer tools experience: Experience building developer tools, IDEs, or technical products where the user is an engineer is a strong plus.
• Relevant industry experience: Prior experience at a frontier AI lab, applied AI company, or developer tools company; you know what good looks like in this category.
• Degree from a top‑tier university: BS, MS, or equivalent in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related technical discipline from a highly selective program.

Equal Opportunity

Cognition is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities throughout the hiring process – please let us know if you need any.