Software Engineer, Client Infrastructure

Cursor; New York, San Francisco (NY, CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Cursor is seeking an Engineer for the Client Infrastructure team responsible for designing and building systems that enhance the desktop experience for millions of developers. This role focuses on optimizing client performance and reliability across macOS, Windows, and Linux environments.

The chosen candidate will work on various projects, including improving build systems, enhancing performance, and developing tools that allow other engineers to ship efficiently. A passion for coding and a desire to drive innovation in AI-driven tools are essential.

Qualifications

• Deep experience in client infrastructure—build systems, performance, distribution, or observability.
• Built or contributed to high-performance desktop applications.
• Strong focus on performance, reliability, and developer experience.

Responsibilities

• Design and build core client infrastructure for desktop applications.
• Improve reliability and performance by eliminating memory leaks and crashes.
• Create instrumentation and telemetry systems for profiling and performance measurement.

Skills

Client infrastructure

Performance optimization

Build systems

Observability

AI-driven developer tools

Job description

Our mission is to automate coding. The first step in our journey is to build the best tool for professional programmers, using a combination of inventive research, design, and engineering. Our organization is very flat, and our team is small and talent dense. We particularly like people who are truth‑seeking, passionate, and creative. We enjoy spirited debate, crazy ideas, and shipping code.

About the Role

As an Engineer on the Client Infrastructure team at Cursor, you’ll design and build the systems that make our desktop experience performant and stable for millions of developers.

You’ll work across the core architecture of the Cursor client—from build and distribution systems to performance instrumentation and shared abstractions that other teams rely on. The work is deeply technical and central to the company’s success. Developers expect near‑perfect performance and reliability from their trusted tools; your work will make that possible.

Cursor’s client is growing fast, spanning macOS, Windows, and Linux, and serving an increasingly diverse user base of professional engineers across many programming languages and developer ecosystems. You’ll shape the systems that let us ship safely and quickly, while pushing the limits of what’s possible in an AI‑driven development environment.

Example projects include...

• Building core client infrastructure: shared abstractions, build systems, and observability foundations.

• Improving reliability and performance: eliminating memory leaks, crashes, and frame‑time inconsistencies.

• Designing instrumentation and telemetry systems for profiling, structured logging, and performance measurement.

• Partnering with product teams to unlock faster release velocity—shipping updates to users daily.

• Evaluating Electron vs. native approaches for critical code paths, guiding architectural tradeoffs.

• Building internal tooling that enables other engineers to ship safely and quickly on the client platform.

You may be a fit if

• You have deep experience in client infrastructure—build systems, performance, distribution, or observability.

• You’ve built or contributed to high‑performance desktop applications, whether Electron‑based or native.

• You care deeply about performance, reliability, and developer experience, and have an eye for elegant systems design.

• You thrive in environments that are fast‑moving, collaborative, and product‑focused.

• You’re excited to push the limits of what’s possible in AI‑driven developer tools.

Applying

If there appears to be a fit, we'll reach to schedule 2-3 short technicals. After, we'll schedule an onsite in our office, where you'll work on a small project, discuss ideas, and meet the team.