Staff AI Engineer

Empathy Talent; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 279,000 - 341,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellness benefits starting day 1

Flexible time off

Technology reimbursements

401(k) plan

Twice-yearly in-person offsites across

the U.S.

Job summary

Empathy Talent is seeking a Staff AI Engineer to shape the technical direction of our intelligence layer, defining architecture, standards, and a roadmap for reliable enterprise AI agents.

You’ll lead cross‑functional decisions, drive scalable LLM infrastructure, and mentor senior engineers while delivering high‑impact systems across teams.

Compensation: up to $310,000 base + equity; you’ll partner with Engineering, Product, and Design to advance the AI roadmap and build reusable platforms.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of production software engineering experience.
• ≥3 years leading complex AI/ML systems.
• Deep expertise in TypeScript, Python, and distributed systems.
• Proven experience shipping enterprise-scale LLM-powered products.
• Experience defining retrieval architectures, vector databases, and embedding pipelines.
• Hands-on with modern LLM APIs and agent frameworks including OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, LangGraph.

Responsibilities

• Set the architectural direction for agentic systems and the broader intelligence layer.
• Identify and resolve systemic gaps that limit reliability, scalability, or product velocity.
• Make high-leverage technical bets and drive them through implementation.
• Establish evaluation standards, observability infrastructure, and reliability frameworks at scale.
• Own complex, cross-cutting product areas end-to-end.
• Design agent orchestration and retrieval systems for enterprise-grade complexity.
• Lead the evolution of LLM infrastructure, prompts, guardrails, evaluations, and feedback loops.
• Prototype, validate, and harden novel approaches before scaling them across the engineering organization.

Skills

8+ years production software

3+ years AI/ML systems

TypeScript

Python

distributed systems

LLM-powered products

retrieval architectures

vector databases

embedding pipelines

OpenAI API

Anthropic API

Gemini API

LangGraph API

Job description

As a Staff AI Engineer, you’ll shape the technical direction of the intelligence layer—defining the architecture, standards, and roadmap required to build highly reliable AI agents for enterprise environments.

This role is designed for an experienced engineer who combines deep technical judgment, strong product instincts, and organizational influence. You’ll work across the engineering organization to drive technical decisions and build systems that create compounding impact over time.

Compensation: Up to $310,000 base + equity

What You’ll Own

• Set the architectural direction for agentic systems and the broader intelligence layer
• Identify and resolve systemic gaps that limit reliability, scalability, or product velocity
• Make high-leverage technical bets and drive them through implementation
• Establish evaluation standards, observability infrastructure, and reliability frameworks at scale

Build and Ship High-Impact Systems

• Own complex, cross-cutting product areas end-to-end
• Design agent orchestration and retrieval systems capable of handling enterprise-grade complexity
• Lead the evolution of LLM infrastructure, including models, prompts, guardrails, evaluations, and feedback loops
• Prototype, validate, and harden novel approaches before scaling them across the engineering organization

Drive Organizational Leverage

• Partner with Engineering leadership, Product, and Design to shape the AI roadmap
• Create reusable platforms, patterns, and tooling that multiply engineering velocity
• Mentor and develop the next generation of senior engineers

Represent and Advance the Field

• Stay at the frontier of LLMs, agents, and applied AI research, rapidly evaluating and adopting technologies that can create meaningful impact
• Build internal knowledge and shared understanding around AI system design
• Help establish the organization as a technical leader in enterprise and vertical AI

Who You Are

You’re a senior technical leader who has built your skills for an AI-native world. These principles resonate with you:

• Technical depth with organizational influence: You lead through expertise and technical credibility rather than authority
• Systems thinker: You understand second-order effects and design systems with the bigger picture in mind
• Strong product judgment: You prioritize ruthlessly while keeping customer outcomes at the center
• Multiplier: You make engineers and teams around you more effective
• Principled pragmatism: You know when to push technical boundaries and when to ship what works
• End-to-end ownership: You take responsibility for outcomes, not simply deliverables

Experience

We care more about capability and trajectory than years on a resume, but strong candidates will typically bring:

• 8+ years of production software engineering experience, including 3+ years leading complex AI/ML systems
• Deep expertise in TypeScript, Python, and distributed systems
• Proven experience shipping LLM-powered products at enterprise scale
• Experience defining evaluation infrastructure and reliability standards for AI systems
• Deep knowledge of retrieval architectures, RAG, vector databases, and embedding pipelines
• Hands-on experience with modern LLM APIs and agent frameworks, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, LangGraph, or similar technologies
• Experience influencing technical direction across multiple teams or product areas
• Track record of mentoring senior engineers and strengthening engineering culture

What Should Excite You

• Enterprise-grade reliability: Building AI systems professionals can depend on
• Human-in-the-loop design: Understanding when to automate and when expert judgment should remain involved
• Nuanced evaluation: Creating evaluation systems for workflows where judgment and context matter
• Explainability: Making AI outputs and agent reasoning transparent and trustworthy
• Complex domains: Solving difficult problems involving compliance and enterprise rigor while maintaining speed
• Shipping daily value: Building agent experiences customers actively rely on
• Comprehensive health and wellness benefits
• Flexible time off and work schedules
• Technology reimbursements
• 401(k) plan
• Twice-yearly in-person offsites across the U.S.
• Wellness benefits starting on your first day