Staff Engineer (AI)

FORT; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 260,000 - 380,000; Full time

Job summary

FORT - Future of Recruiting Technologists in San Francisco is seeking a Chief Engineer to own a domain end-to-end, architect the systems, and ship high-impact features. You'll lead an engineering pod and participate in weekly council sessions with the founders.

This role is hands-on and non-management; you will still code and set technical standards while partnering with PMs and leaders to drive outcomes in a fast-growing startup that leverages frontier AI tools.

Qualifications

• Experience at Staff/Principal Engineer level or equivalent (e.g., CTO, Head of Development).
• Experience in a high-growth startup (Series A-C / sub-500 employees).
• Evidence of building something of lasting value as a company scaled.
• Strong 0 to 1 ownership – took a critical product or system from concept through production.
• Deeply hands-on technically – this role is for someone who still wants to architect AND code.
• Strong engineering fundamentals across Node.js, React and Python.
• Daily use of frontier AI development tools such as Claude Code and Cursor.
• Experience with conversational AI, voice AI or agentic systems would be highly valuable.
• Technical founder experience where you've built and scaled a product would translate well.
• BS/BA in Computer Science or another relevant technical discipline; advanced degrees welcomed.

Responsibilities

• Own the domain end-to-end: architecture, build, and ship results with your team.
• Lead through technical credibility and stay hands-on with code.
• Collaborate with a Domain PM as an equal to set the technical bar and guide engineers and leads.

Skills

Node.js

React

Python

Education

BS/BA in Computer Science or related discipline

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

Job description

FORT is partnering with a category-leading Agentic AI company transforming how financial institutions across the US interact with their customers.

The business has built a conversational AI platform spanning voice, digital and employee-assisted channels - all powered by a unified AI brain. Following significant investment and continued commercial growth, they're now scaling their engineering organisation and hiring Chief Engineers to own key technical domains across the business.

This is the most senior technical IC track in the company.

You'll own a domain end-to-end, architect and build alongside the team, run your own engineering pod and hold a weekly council seat alongside the founders.

This isn’t engineering management

You'll lead through technical credibility and still be deeply hands-on with the code.

The What?

As Chief Engineer, you'll have genuine ownership over both the architecture and outcomes of your domain.

You could be working across:

• Core AI runtime, retrieval, evaluation and intelligence systems


• Voice, conversational AI and agentic systems


• Integrations and computer-use agents


• Data platforms and cross-customer fraud detection


• Agent development and deployment platforms

You'll partner with a Domain PM as an equal, set the technical bar across your area and steer engineers and technical leads while continuing to design, build, review and ship yourself.

AI is also fundamental to how the engineering team works. Frontier AI development tools are part of the everyday workflow, allowing a deliberately small, senior engineering team to operate at serious scale.

The Requirements...

• Experience operating at Staff / Principal Engineer level or equivalent (could be CTO, Head of Development etc)


• Experience in a high-growth startup, ideally Series A-C / sub-500 employees


• Evidence that you've built something of lasting value as a company scaled


• Strong 0 to 1 ownership - you've taken a critical product or system from concept through to production


• Deeply hands-on technically - this role is for someone who still wants to architect AND code


• Strong engineering fundamentals, ideally across Node.js, React and Python


• Daily, meaningful use of frontier AI development tools such as Claude Code and Cursor


• Experience with conversational AI, voice AI or agentic systems would be highly valuable


• Technical founder experience where you've built and scaled a product would also translate extremely well


• BS/BA in Computer Science or another relevant technical discipline; advanced technical degrees welcomed

This probably isn't the right move if you're looking to transition into pure people management or your experience has exclusively been within large enterprise engineering environments.

The Benefits? (Skinny)

• Join a profitable, venture-backed AI company with significant market traction


• Ownership of an entire technical domain


• Direct influence alongside the founders, CTO and product leadership


• Small, highly senior and high-leverage engineering organisation


• Lean interview process designed to move quickly, with the potential to reach a decision within the same day

And finally.. Who are we?

FORT - Future of Recruiting Technologists

is a specialist technology recruitment consultancy, connecting exceptional technology professionals with some of the most exciting businesses in the market.

This is a genuinely unusual opportunity for a Staff / Principal-level engineer who wants more ownership without moving away from engineering.

Own the domain. Build the architecture. Write the code. Set the standard.