Staff Software Engineer, Product

Ambience Healthcare; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 225,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary and equity compensation

Health, dental, and vision coverage

Quarterly retreats

Unlimited PTO

401(k) plan

Job summary

A leading health technology firm in San Francisco seeks a Staff Backend Software Engineer to design and maintain core infrastructure for healthcare AI solutions. Responsibilities include architecting product features, addressing system bottlenecks, and refining code quality. Candidates should have over 5 years of experience in engineering, proficiency in modern infrastructure stacks, and a collaborative spirit. The role includes competitive salary and benefits with a hybrid work model.

Qualifications

• Experience in building and scaling systems to meet production SLAs.
• Ability to navigate architectural trade-offs in distributed systems.
• Demonstrated mentorship experience in engineering.

Responsibilities

• Design and architect major product features leveraging AI advancements.
• Anticipate system bottlenecks and proactively make improvements.
• Lead product initiatives with high strategic value.

Skills

5+ years of experience in engineering challenges

Proficient with cloud providers (AWS, GCP)

Skilled in containers (Docker)

Knowledge of queuing systems (Kafka)

Experience with databases (Postgres)

Job description

Join to apply for the Staff Backend Software Engineer role at Ambience Healthcare

About Us

Ambience Healthcare is the leading AI platform for documentation, coding, and clinical workflow, built to reduce administrative burden and protect revenue integrity at the point of care. Trusted by top health systems across North America, Ambience’s platform is live across outpatient, emergency, and inpatient settings, supporting more than 100 specialties with real‑time, coding‑aware documentation. The platform integrates directly with Epic, Oracle Cerner, athenahealth, and other major EHRs. Founded in 2020 by Mike Ng and Nikhil Buduma, Ambience is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by Oak HC/FT, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), OpenAI Startup Fund, Kleiner Perkins, and other leading investors.

The Role

As a Staff Software Engineer on the AI Platform team, you will design, build, and maintain the core infrastructure that empowers healthcare providers who use our platform every single day as they care for patients. As an OpenAI portfolio company, you will be surrounded by the leading minds in AI and exposed to the latest advancements in our field. In the first 6 months, you’ll be responsible for setting up the foundations for long‑term success, investing in platform observability, reliability, and scalability. As a technical leader, you’ll be responsible for the entire lifecycle of major technical initiatives in our AI stack – from system design to deploying the code you’ve written.

Our Engineering roles are hybrid in our SF office 3x/wk.

What You’ll Do

• Design and architect major product features leveraging the latest advancements in AI to deliver a magical user experience
• Anticipate system bottlenecks and proactively re‑architect key system components before they create issues for our customers
• Lead product initiatives with high strategic value, accelerating speed of iteration while preventing accumulation of technical debt
• Hold the codebase to a high standard, and assist in developing engineering processes that encourage shipping high quality code

Who You Are

• 5+ years of experience tackling zero‑to‑one engineering challenges, building and scaling systems to meet production SLAs, and navigating architectural trade‑offs in distributed systems.
• Proficient with modern infrastructure stacks, including cloud providers (AWS, GCP), containers (Docker), queuing systems (Kafka), and databases (Postgres), and flexible across the stack to deliver projects.
• Skilled at mentoring engineers while remaining hands‑on, driving quality, execution speed, and successful outcomes as a technical leader or engineering manager.
• Demonstrated ability to own end‑to‑end execution, from concept to impactful results, with a focus on building breakthrough product experiences.
• Thrives in environments of complexity and ambiguity, prioritizing collaboration and seeking the best ideas regardless of their source.
• Values kindness, encouragement, and being a supportive teammate, fostering a mission‑aligned and ambitious team culture.

Pay Transparency

We offer a base compensation range of approximately $225,000–$300,000 per year, exclusive of equity. This intentionally broad range provides flexibility for candidates to tailor their cash and equity mix based on individual preferences. Our compensation philosophy prioritizes meaningful equity grants, enabling team members to share directly in the impact they help create. Are you outside of the range? We encourage you to still apply: we take an individualized approach to ensure that compensation accounts for all of the life factors that matter for each candidate.

Being At Ambience

• An opportunity to work with cutting edge AI technology, on a product that dramatically improves the quality of life for healthcare providers and the quality of care they can provide to their patients
• Dedicated budget for personal development, including access to world class mentors, advisors, and an in‑house executive coach
• Work alongside a world‑class, diverse team that is deeply mission aligned
• Ownership over your success and the ability to significantly impact the growth of our company
• Competitive salary and equity compensation with benefits including health, dental, and vision coverage, quarterly retreats, unlimited PTO, and a 401(k) plan

Accommodations

Ambience is committed to supporting every candidate’s ability to fully participate in our hiring process. If you need any accommodations during your application or interviews, please reach out to our Recruiting team at [e-mail]. We’ll handle your request confidentially and work with you to ensure an accessible and equitable experience for all candidates.