Senior Staff Engineer

Asana; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 210,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

Parental leave

In-house culinary program

Job summary

Asana is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to set technical direction across its AI organization. You will lead the hardest cross-team AI problems, make architectural calls, and partner with leadership to shape AI-driven product strategy.

You will mentor senior engineers, guide multi-team initiatives such as agent runtime and LLM inference, and represent Asana’s AI work externally to attract top talent. This role is based in San Francisco with a hybrid schedule.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building production software and leading multi-team efforts.
• Hands-on fluency with the current AI landscape, including foundation models, agent frameworks, tool use, and evaluation methods.

Responsibilities

• Define the technical vision and architecture for Asana’s AI Org, including AI platform, agent systems and Studio.
• Lead cross-team initiatives like agent runtime, orchestration, context/memory for agents, and enterprise-scale LLM inference.
• Set the bar for AI quality with evaluation, monitoring, and feedback loops; mentor staff and grow tech leads.
• Represent Asana’s AI engineering work externally through talks, writing, and the technical community; help attract senior talent.

Skills

Production software

Technical leadership

AI systems

LLM/agents

Cross-team collaboration

Mentoring

Public speaking

Security/compliance

Job description

• The AI organization at Asana builds the platform and products that bring AI into how the world’s teams work. That includes AI Teammates that take on work alongside people, the orchestration layer that lets agents plan and act across the Work Graph, and the AI platform that every AI feature at Asana runs on. The platform covers model access, retrieval, context, evaluation, and production quality
• We are looking for a Senior Staff Software Engineer to set technical direction across this organization. You will lead the hardest cross-team problems in AI at Asana, make architectural calls that hold up as models and the industry shift underneath us, and help senior leadership shape where AI takes the product next
• The scope spans multiple engineering teams across San Francisco, New York, Vancouver, and Warsaw. This role is based in our San Francisco office with an office-centric hybrid schedule
• Define the technical vision and architecture for Asana’s AI Org that includes AI platform, Agent systems and Studio in partnership with engineering and product leadership
• Partner with Product, Design, Data Science, Security, and Legal to take ambitious AI products from prototype to reliable, trusted enterprise features
• Lead strategic initiatives that span multiple teams, such as agent runtime and orchestration, context and memory for agents grounded in the Work Graph, and reliable, cost-efficient LLM inference at enterprise scale
• Set the bar for how Asana measures AI quality, including offline and online evaluation, production monitoring, and the feedback loops that turn real usage into better agents
• Make and guide high-stakes technical decisions on model and vendor strategy, build versus buy, and shared platform abstractions, and make sure those decisions age well
• Influence R&D-wide AI strategy by bringing a grounded view of the model and agent landscape to senior leadership
• Mentor staff and senior engineers, grow tech leads across the AI organization, and raise the bar for design and architecture reviews
• Represent Asana’s AI engineering work externally through talks, writing, and the technical community, and help attract senior talent

Benefits

• Benefits - From comprehensive health benefits including mental health programs and coaching to our in-house culinary program and supportive parental leave policies, our benefits are intentionally designed to ensure that you are energized, focused, and thriving
• Development: We know that growth isn’t always linear, so we’ll support you in achieving your personal and professional goals. You’ll have the opportunity to take on big responsibilities that impact our success as a company and challenge you in new and fulfilling ways.
• Career growth: Your growth at Asana centers on ownership, access, and choice. All employees can tap into resources that support their growth and their team’s growth in the way that works best for their unique needs.

• 10+ years of experience building production software, including significant time as a technical lead whose work spanned multiple teamsHands-on fluency with the current AI landscape, including foundation models, agent frameworks, tool use, and evaluation methods, with opinions strong enough to set direction and flexible enough to change with new evidence
• Passionate about coaching and mentoring engineers, including senior and staff-level engineers
• 3+ years building production systems with LLMs or machine learning, such as agents, retrieval, evaluation, or inference infrastructure
• Track record of leading architecture and initiatives across organizational boundaries, with decisions that proved right over time
• Deep care for collaboration and an ability to foster an inclusive culture where everyone can bring their full selves to work and thrive
• Able to communicate clearly at every level, from design reviews with engineers to strategy discussions with executives, and to bridge product, business, and technical language
• Experience with multi-tenant enterprise SaaS, and with security, privacy, and data governance for AI systems, is a plus
• Deep experience with distributed systems and the reliability, latency, and cost challenges of running them at scale
• Demonstrates curiosity about AI tools and emerging technologies, with a willingness to learn and leverage them to enhance productivity, collaboration, or decision-making