Senior Software Engineer, Self-Serve Intelligence

lyft; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 185,000 - 222,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Mental health benefits

Family building benefits

Child care benefits

401(k) matching

Paid time off

Parental leave 18 weeks

Commuter benefits

Lyft credits

Lyft Pink membership

Job summary

Lyft is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for the Self-Serve Intelligence team in San Francisco. You will design, build, and maintain backend services and GenAI-powered products to resolve rider and driver issues autonomously.

Expect end-to-end ownership from design to production, with a strong emphasis on reliability and scalable architectures. You will collaborate with product, design, data science, and operations to ship robust AI-powered solutions.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience.
• Strong backend fundamentals—designing, building, and operating distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, agentic workflows, or building AI Agents.
• Track record of GenAI or ML-powered products.
• Experience defining API schemas and developing backend services in a microservices environment.
• Able to learn quickly when facing unfamiliar problems.
• Great communicator and collaborator.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, ship, and maintain scalable backend services and GenAI-powered products that resolve customer experiences autonomously.
• Develop robust evaluation frameworks to measure and improve GenAI-driven experiences.
• Lead projects from idea to production with end-to-end system design and operational health.
• Write well-tested, readable, maintainable code.
• Design and evolve APIs, data models, and service architectures for rapid product iteration.
• Adopt emerging AI capabilities to accelerate development velocity across the team.
• Ensure reliability by monitoring, debugging, and improving service health and latency.
• Unblock and communicate across teams to achieve results.

Skills

Python

LLMs

GenAI

Backend

Distributed systems

Job description

At Lyft, our purpose is to serve and connect. We aim to achieve this by cultivating a work environment where all team members belong and have the opportunity to thrive.

Every day, millions of riders and drivers depend on Lyft — and when something goes wrong, we want to make it right as fast as possible. The Self-Serve Intelligence team within Safety & Customer Care org is building the AI-powered systems that do exactly that: resolving rider and driver suboptimal experiences without agent involvement through intelligent solutions in AI Assist (e.g. AI Agents), automations, and self-serve workflows. We're building backend systems, APIs, and AI-powered products that fundamentally rethink how customers get help — combining robust engineering with GenAI to deliver reliable, scalable self-serve experiences.

As a Senior Software Engineer on the Self-Serve Intelligence team, you will design, build, ship, and maintain backend services and AI-powered products (e.g. various AI Agents) that autonomously resolve customer suboptimal experiences. You'll own the full lifecycle — from system design and prototyping through production deployment and operational excellence — partnering with product, design, data science, and operations to deliver high-quality, reliable solutions at scale.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, ship, and maintain scalable backend services and GenAI-powered products (e.g. AI Agents) that resolve rider and driver suboptimal experiences autonomously
• Develop robust evaluation frameworks to measure and improve the quality and impact of GenAI-driven customer experiences
• Lead projects from idea to production, owning end-to-end system design, implementation, and operational health
• Write well-crafted, well-tested, readable, maintainable code
• Design and evolve APIs, data models, and service architectures that support rapid product iteration
• Rapidly adopt and integrate emerging AI capabilities to accelerate development velocity across the team
• Incorporate considerations for edge cases, failure modes, and business context into system design
• Participate in code and architecture reviews to ensure quality and distribute knowledge
• Own system reliability — monitor, debug, and improve service health, latency, and availability
• Proactively participate in resolving ongoing incidents
• Unblock, support, and effectively communicate across teams to achieve results
• Share your knowledge by giving brown bags, tech talks, and evangelizing engineering and AI best practices

Experience:

• 5+ years of software engineering industry experience
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals — designing, building, and operating distributed systems and microservices in production
• Hands‑on experience with LLMs, agentic workflows, or building AI Agents — we value depth of AI experience and treat it as a strong differentiator
• Track record of building, evaluating, and shipping GenAI or ML-powered products
• Experience defining API schemas and developing backend services in a microservices environment
• When facing an ambiguous problem or outside your expertise, you can quickly learn what you need to dig in, make sense of it, and start working toward a solution
• You're a great communicator who can advocate for your proposals while empathizing with your teammates' goals and priorities
• You have a history of going out of your way to help your fellow engineers be more productive

It would be a huge plus to have:

• Strong proficiency in Python
• Experience with AI agent frameworks, prompt engineering, or model evaluation pipelines

Benefits:

• Great medical, dental, and vision insurance options with additional programs available when enrolled
• Mental health benefits
• Family building benefits
• Child care and pet benefits
• 401(k) plan with company match to help save for your future
• In addition to 12 observed holidays, salaried team members have discretionary paid time off, hourly team members have 15 days paid time off
• 18 weeks of paid parental leave. Biological, adoptive, and foster parents are all eligible
• Subsidized commuter benefits
• Monthly Lyft credits and complimentary Lyft Pink membership

Lyft is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive workplace that fosters belonging. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, age, genetic information, or any other basis prohibited by law. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

Lyft highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. This role will be in-office on a hybrid schedule — Team Members will be expected to work in the office 3 days per week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Lyft considers working in the office at least 3 days per week to be an essential function of this hybrid role. Your recruiter can share more information about the various in-office perks Lyft offers. Additionally, hybrid roles have the flexibility to work from anywhere for up to 4 weeks per year. #Hybrid

The expected base pay range for this position in the San Francisco area is $185,000 - $222,000, not inclusive of potential equity offering, bonus or benefits. Salary ranges are dependent on a variety of factors, including qualifications, experience and geographic location. Your recruiter can share more information about the salary range specific to your working location and other factors during the hiring process.