Software Engineer, Desktop

A1; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

A1 is seeking a skilled software engineer to own the behavior of our desktop product. You will focus on reliability, performance, and real-time features across macOS and Windows within Electron-based applications.

Responsibilities include building cross-platform UIs with React, integrating IPC, file system access, and native notifications, and optimizing startup time and memory usage while maintaining large local state and historical data.

Qualifications

• Proven software engineering experience.
• Hands-on experience building production Electron applications.
• Experience with React or similar UI frameworks.
• Solid understanding of the desktop application lifecycle.
• Experience with IPC communication.
• Experience working with local storage (SQLite, IndexedDB, filesystem).
• Experience with WebSockets or real-time transport mechanisms.
• Strong debugging and performance profiling skills.
• Familiarity with native OS behaviors on macOS or Windows.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain cross-platform desktop applications using Electron.
• Design responsive and scalable UIs for real-time collaboration.
• Implement desktop-specific functionality including file system access, native notifications, auto-updates, and deep linking.
• Integrate AI-powered features via backend APIs.
• Optimize startup time, memory usage, and runtime performance.
• Profile and reduce Electron overhead.
• Manage large local state and message history efficiently.
• Maintain stability across macOS and Windows environments.

Skills

Electron

React

Node.js

TypeScript

IPC

SQL

NoSQL

WebSockets

Tools

SQLite

IndexedDB

Filesystem

Chrome DevTools

Job description

There are over 5 billion users using basic applications today such email, notes, tasks that are not AI-native. Our mission is to build a proactive smart assistant for everyday users to bring intelligence to conversations, errands, organising and workflows, with minimal prompting.

Our product focuses on achieving high reliability for long-running workflows, persistent context, and real-world task completion. The system must handle multi-step reasoning, interact with external tools, and remain reliable despite non-deterministic model behavior. Our objective is to help users complete tasks daily enjoyable with over ~90%* reduced time.

Role

You will own how this system behaves on desktop environments. Your work focuses on reliability, performance, and real-time behavior in production desktop applications.

Focus

• Build and maintain cross-platform desktop applications using Electron.
• Design responsive and scalable UIs for real-time collaboration.
• Implement desktop-specific functionality including file system access, native notifications, auto-updates, and deep linking.
• Integrate AI-powered features (chat, agents, AI assistance) via backend APIs.
• Optimize startup time, memory usage, and runtime performance.
• Profile and reduce Electron overhead.
• Manage large local state and message history efficiently.
• Maintain stability across macOS and Windows environments.

Ideal Experiences

• Proven software engineering experience.
• Hands-on experience building production Electron applications.
• Experience with React or similar UI frameworks.
• Solid understanding of the desktop application lifecycle.
• Experience with IPC communication.
• Experience working with local storage (SQLite, IndexedDB, filesystem).
• Experience with WebSockets or other real-time transport mechanisms.
• Strong debugging and performance profiling skills.
• Familiarity with native OS behaviors on macOS or Windows.
• Electron
• Node.js
• Typescript
• SQL & noSQL

How We Work

The best products today in the world were built by small, world class teams. We are a high talent density and hands-on team. We make decisions collectively, move at rapid speed, striking a balance between shipping high quality work and learning. Joining our team requires the ability to bring structure, exercise judgment, and execute independently. Our goal is to put in hands of our users a truly magical product