Senior Software Engineer, Agent

Pave; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 196,000 - 265,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Flexible PTO

Work from anywhere for up to a month

Education stipend

Parental leave

Commuter stipend

Job summary

Pave, headquartered in San Francisco, is hiring an AI Compensation Analyst on the Agent Team. You will help design an agentic system that reasons over real-time compensation data, executes multi-step workflows, and brings pricing insights to market.

We seek 7+ years building production systems with LLMs, a strong product sense, and a founder mindset. You’ll drive architectural alignment and deliver end-to-end impact in a hybrid, globally distributed team.

Qualifications

• 7+ years building production systems with LLMs, agentic architectures, retrieval systems, and evaluation frameworks.
• Strong product intuition; identify AI-driven problems and help shape what gets built.
• Proven track record delivering 0→1 technical initiatives amid high ambiguity.
• Pragmatic engineering judgment: balance speed and quality.
• Ability to drive technical alignment across teams and define reusable primitives.
• Founder mentality with ownership and urgency to bring a new AI product to market.

Responsibilities

• Define primitives and patterns that other engineers build on, aligning teams.
• Shape the technical vision and execution for Pave's AI compensation agent from concept to market.
• Collaborate with engineers and data scientists to deliver end-to-end product.

Skills

LLMs

Agentic architectures

Retrieval systems

Evaluation frameworks

Product intuition

Technical leadership

Pragmatic engineering

Cross-team alignment

Founder mentality

Job description

At Pave, we're building the industry’s leading compensation platform, combining the world's largest real-time compensation dataset with deep expertise in AI and machine learning. Our platform is perfecting the art and science of pay to give 9,000+ companies unparalleled confidence in every compensation decision.

Top tier companies like OpenAI, McDonald’s, Instacart, Atlassian, Affi... ... $190+ billion in total compensation spend is managed in our workflows, and 80% of Forbes AI 50 use Pave to benchmark compensation.

The future of pay is real-time & predictive, and we’re making it happen right now. We’ve raised $175M in funding from leading investors like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Index Ventures, Y Combinator, Insight Partners, Atomico, Venture Partners, and Craft Ventures.

Who We Are

At Pave, we’re building the industry’s leading compensation platform, combining the world's largest real-time compensation dataset with deep expertise in AI and machine learning. Our platform is perfecting the art and science of pay to give 9,000+ companies unparalleled confidence in every compensation decision.

Top tier companies like OpenAI, McDonald’s, Instacart, Atlassian, Affi... ... $190+ billion in total compensation spend is managed in our workflows, and 80% of Forbes AI 50 use Pave to benchmark compensation.

The future of pay is real-time & predictive, and we’re making it happen right now. We’ve raised $175M in funding from leading investors like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Index Ventures, Y Combinator, Insight Partners, Atomico, Venture Partners, and Craft Ventures.

The Agent Team @ Pave

This role will be working on Pave's AI compensation analyst – an agentic system that sits on top of the world's largest proprietary compensation dataset and Pave's existing workflow engine. Think: autonomous agents that can reason over structured compensation data and execute multi-step workflows (market pricing, cycle planning, attrition analysis) across Pave's platform. In this role, you’ll shape the technical vision and execution, working with a team of engineers and data scientists to build the product end-to-end and take it to market. This role requires deep AI expertise, strong product intuition, and a founder mentality.

What You'll Bring

• 7+ years of experience building production systems, with deep hands‑on expertise in LLMs, agentic architectures, retrieval systems, and evaluation frameworks
• Strong product intuition. You identify customer problems that AI can uniquely solve and partner with Product to shape what gets built, not just how
• Proven track record leading 0→1 technical initiatives with high ambiguity, driving them from concept to production
• Pragmatic engineering judgment: you know when to move fast and when to invest in quality
• Ability to drive technical alignment across teams. You’ll be defining primitives and patterns that other engineers build on, so you need to bring people along
• Founder mentality with bias toward action, ownership, and urgency; you're energized by the challenge of bringing a new AI product to market

Compensation, It's What We Do.

At Pave, we believe compensation should be as thoughtful as the people we hire. Your total rewards package includes meaningful equity, best‑in‑class medical, dental, and vision coverage, unlimited PTO, and region‑specific benefits designed around your life — not just your role. Your level and compensation are determined by your experience and how you show up throughout the interview process. We're always happy to walk you through how we think about leveling — just ask.

Targeted cash compensation for this role:

P4: $195,500 - $264,500

Benefits @ Pave

At Pave, growth isn't a perk — it's the point. As you develop, your role expands, your responsibilities deepen, and your compensation reflects the impact you're making.

What we offer

• Your Health, Fully Covered: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family, with a range of options designed to meet you where you are.
• Time That's Actually Yours: Flexible PTO and the freedom to work from anywhere in the world for up to a month — because life doesn't pause, and neither should you.
• Fuel for the Work: Lunch and dinner stipends plus fully stocked kitchens, so you can stay energized without thinking twice about it.
• Room to Keep Growing: A quarterly education stipend to invest in the skills and knowledge that matter most to you.
• Support When It Matters Most: Robust parental leave so you can be fully present for the moments that count.
• Getting Here, Made Easier: A commuter stipend to support the in‑person collaboration that makes great work happen.

Life @ Pave

Founded in 2019 with a clear purpose and a team that has never wavered from it, Pave has grown into a global force in compensation management — giving thousands of companies the tools to take control, build confidence, and earn credibility in every pay decision they make. And we're just getting started. Headquartered in San Francisco's Financial District, with regional hubs in New York City's Flatiron District, Salt Lake City, Kraków (Poland), and the United Kingdom — wherever you're based, you'll find the same thing: people who genuinely care about the work, each other, and the customers that rely on Pave.

We run a hybrid culture that brings teams together in person 4 days a week — and every Friday, the whole company gathers for our Team Sync: breakfast, new hire welcomes, product updates, fireside chats, and yes, the occasional Kahoot. It's one of the things people notice when they join us — that we truly enjoy spending time together.

Our culture is shaped by five values we live every day:

• Be Intellectually Honest — Truth over comfort. We face reality clearly and speak directly, even when it's hard.
• Play to Win — We're not here to participate. We're here to be the #1 compensation platform in the world, and we act like it.
• Uphold the Pave Platinum Standard — We hold ourselves to the highest bar — for our customers, our data, and each other.
• One Team — We win and lose together. Titles don't drive decisions here — shared goals do.
• Hug of Jawn — Hard to define, impossible to miss. Ask your recruiter.

Our Vision: Unlock a labor market built on trust.

Our Mission: Build confidence in every compensation decision.

We build software that transforms how companies pay their people — and we believe the team behind that software deserves the same thoughtfulness. If you're ready to help shape the future of compensation alongside people who are smart, humble, and genuinely motivated by the problem we're solving, we'd love to meet you.

Pave uses automated tools, including AI-based fraud detection, to verify applicant identity and protect the integrity of our hiring process.