Senior AI Software Engineer - Remote, Lead & Build AI Apps

Next Step Systems; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 135,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical Insurance

Dental

Vision

Savings Plan

PTO

Job summary

Next Step Systems is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for AI Email Applications. This hands-on leadership role shapes the architecture across backend services, APIs, and client applications while guiding a small team of senior engineers.

The position is 100% remote and requires readiness to complete a 60-minute coding assessment. You will own the engineering strategy, design reliable AI-powered workflows, and partner with ML leadership to deliver robust product experiences.

Qualifications

• AI experience required.
• Significant experience leading application or product engineering for complex systems.
• Strong hands-on background building and shipping backend systems.
• Experience building AI-powered products or systems that integrate ML/LLM capabilities.
• Strong technical judgment and the ability to make decisions with incomplete information.

Responsibilities

• Own the application engineering strategy and execution across backend, mobile, and desktop.
• Design reliable systems for AI-powered workflows, including state, orchestration, tool use, retries, fallbacks, and failure handling.
• Build the APIs and abstractions that connect AI systems to real-world product experiences.
• Lead a small, senior engineering team and raise the technical bar through design reviews, code reviews, and hands-on mentorship.
• Make high-impact trade-offs across latency, reliability, cost, security, and user experience.
• Establish strong production foundations: observability, monitoring, testing, and operational excellence.
• Partner closely with ML leadership to turn model capabilities into robust product experiences.
• Move quickly while keeping the architecture simple and scalable.

Skills

AI experience

Team leadership

Hands-on backend

Architectural decisions

Code quality

Job description

Next Step Systems is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for AI Email Applications. This hands-on leadership role shapes the architecture across backend services, APIs, and client applications while guiding a small team of senior engineers.

The position is 100% remote and requires readiness to complete a 60-minute coding assessment. You will own the engineering strategy, design reliable AI-powered workflows, and partner with ML leadership to deliver robust product experiences.