Staff Engineer

Penguin Ai; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, vision, and dental coverage

Generous vacation policy and company H

Front-row seat in AI healthcare

Job summary

Penguin Ai in the United States seeks a Staff Engineer who defines the problems worth solving, drives technical direction, and raises the standard for quality from code to production systems.

You will own projects end to end, build the evidence base for decisions, and coach engineers to raise the entire team's capability.

This is AI for real-world healthcare, requiring hands-on leadership, collaboration with product and clinical partners, and a relentless focus on reliability and impact.

Qualifications

• Requires a Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering/Data Science or related field.
• Expert level in using AI coding tools and modern development workflows.
• Proven ability to lead projects end to end and drive technical direction.

Responsibilities

• Solve the problems that matter and advocate for fixes with stakeholders.
• Lead projects end to end, delegating to grow others and owning team output.
• Set engineering direction and define tools, libraries, and practices across departments.
• Build the evidence base for decisions with data and trade-offs.
• Design in the open and document decisions including unknowns.
• Ship on the hardest problems and review code promptly.
• Own production reliability, observability, and long-term health of systems.
• Take charge when something breaks in production and drive fixes to completion.
• Advance AI reliability by defining where AI can be trusted and where it needs review.
• Represent engineering to internal and external customers as a confident technology leader.

Skills

AI coding tools

Leadership

System design

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering/Data Science or related field

Tools

Claude

Gemini

Copilot

Cursor

Windsurf

Codeium

Job description

The Staff Engineer finds the problems worth solving and sees them through. They drive technical direction with their own ideas and the evidence to back them, set the standard for technical quality from the code they write to the systems running in production, make AI a reliable part of how engineering work gets done, and raise the level of the engineers around them and of those we hire.

Your Day-to-Day Superpowers: What You’ll Actually Do:

• Solve the problems that matter: Identify what limits how fast the business can move, advocate for solutions with the people who own the decision, and drive the agreed fix through, working with the owners of every system involved
• Lead projects end to end: Delegate so others grow, step in when anyone is stuck, and own the whole team’s output, crediting the team and taking problems on yourself first
• Set technical direction: Set engineering direction alongside other technical leaders, proactively defining the tools, libraries, and practices used across departments, and champion the group’s decision even when your own proposal loses
• Build the evidence: Build the measurement when the data doesn’t yet exist, along with a clear account of the alternatives and trade-offs
• Design in the open: Share designs early & rough and write down why decisions were made and what was unknown at the time
• Ship on the hardest problems: Ship code on the team’s hardest problems, seeking out the difficult work, and review promptly, challenging the code and never the person
• Own production: Own what runs in production: its reliability, operability, and long-term health. Prevent incidents by building in observability and tested recovery, and fix root causes
• Take charge when things break: When anything goes wrong in production, take ownership at once, whoever’s system it is. Communicate early and calmly, drive the fix to completion, and review systems and decisions, never individuals
• Make AI a reliable part of engineering: Use AI throughout your work and answer for its output as your own. With your peers, define where it can be trusted, where it needs closer review, and what must always be verified, so results are consistent across engineers
• Represent engineering: Represent engineering to internal and external customers as a confident technology leader: prepared, plain about trade-offs, and bringing the team along
• Coach and grow engineers: Coach engineers toward the next level of their work with direct, empathetic feedback, shared mistakes, and harder problems than they would choose themselves
• Hold the hiring bar: Hold the bar for engineering talent, judging candidates and colleagues alike on evidence against the same standard, including how each treats ideas and people

What We're Looking For: Your Engineering Solving Arsenal!

• You meet each need with the simplest solution that will serve it, and weigh every problem against business priorities, deferring those that don’t yet warrant the effort
• You surface risks, slips, and your own mistakes the day you see them, arriving with a proposed way forward rather than blame
• You drive technical direction with your own ideas and the evidence to back them
• You welcome challenge, hold your position against objections the evidence doesn’t support, and revise publicly when proven wrongYou engage technical disagreements rather than avoid them, keeping debate on ideas and escalating early when agreement can’t be reached
• Your code and designs are correct, tested, secure, and maintainable, and you never take on technical debt without naming its cost and owning a plan to repay it
• Expert level in using AI Coding tools: Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, Codeium etc
• You say “I don’t know” openly, then learn it and apply it
• You continually look for better practices and retire those that no longer hold up
• You’ve delivered AI or automation projects that deliver measurable undeniable impact
• You’ve not just survived but thrived in the beautiful chaos of a high-growth startup
• You can effortlessly translate between product-speak, clinical-speak, and exec-speak
• You have a legendary reputation for turning "red" projects gloriously green

The Culture Fit: Join Our Colony!

You'll waddle with us if:

• You like your coffee with a side of delightful chaos
• You're fuelled by complexity and obsessed with delivering amazing results
• You want to deliver something that fundamentally matters, transforms healthcare and ultimately saves lives
• You believe implementation isn’t a handoff; it’s the start of an epic, trusted partnership!

Education & Qualifications: Brainiac Basics

• A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related field
• Medical, vision, and dental coverage: Keep you healthy and smiling!
• Generous vacation policy and company holidays: Recharge and conquer!
• front-row seat in one of healthcare's most exciting AI companies – witness history in the making!

Penguin Ai: We're Not Just Building AI, We're Revolutionizing Healthcare! Want to Be Our Staff Engineer Maestro?

Who We Are: The Penguin Ai Rebellion!

We’re not your average AI company - and we don’t want average teammates. Penguin Ai was founded by healthcare veterans who knew the system needed more than hype and half-baked algorithms. We built an AI platform that actually works in healthcare - across Prior Auth, HCC Coding, and all those soul-crushing workflows no one brags about. Our platform is fast to implement (think: 60 days), reduces administrative costs up to 40%, and makes payers look like heroes without writing a line of code.

This is AI for the real world of healthcare. And just to put a fine point on it: powerhouses like Snowflake and AWS don't just partner with anyone. Their trust in our platform speaks volumes about our robust, scalable, and secure technology.

Our audacious vision was first ignited by our CEO Fawad Butt , whose leadership as Chief Data Officer at both Optum and Kaiser Permanente gave him oversight of healthcare data representing nearly 75% of American lives . So, he didn't just see the problem; he lived it. Fawad understood that healthcare AI couldn't be a bandage - it had to be a purpose-built, battle-ready solution , meticulously crafted for the intricate, human-first world of medicine, not some hastily retro