Staff Engineer, Autonomous AI Systems

Emergent; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Unlimited PTO

Flexible working hours

Equity

Job summary

Emergent is redefining software creation by building autonomous coding agents that generate, test, and deploy production applications directly from plain-language intent. As a Staff Engineer on Autonomous Systems in San Francisco, you will shape the technical foundation for reliable AI-driven software at global scale.

You will own architecture for critical production systems, mentor engineers, and collaborate across AI/ML, infrastructure, and product teams to deliver end-to-end solutions that

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience building large-scale backend or distributed systems.
• Strong proficiency in Python and/or Go.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, concurrency and parallelism, and system design under scale and failure.
• Proven track record of owning architecture for critical production systems.
• Experience with AI/ML infrastructure is a strong plus.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, Docker, AWS/GCP/Azure, event-driven systems, and data infrastructure is a bonus.

Responsibilities

• Architect autonomous systems where AI agents reliably generate production-grade software, with feedback loops for self-correction, validation, and continuous improvement.
• Build infrastructure that supports millions of applications and real-time workloads, solving for latency, concurrency, and reliability at global scale.
• Establish standards for correctness, observability, and fault tolerance across backend, infrastructure, and AI layers.
• Collaborate with AI/ML, infrastructure, and product teams to build end-to-end systems from model interaction layers to distributed execution engines.
• Debug non-deterministic systems, design for edge cases, and build systems that reason, not just execute.
• Mentor engineers and influence technical culture and direction across teams.

Skills

Python

Go

Distributed systems

Backend architecture

Leadership

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

AWS/GCP/Azure

Event-driven systems

Job description

Emergent is redefining software creation by building autonomous coding agents that generate, test, and deploy production applications directly from plain-language intent. As a Staff Engineer on Autonomous Systems in San Francisco, you will shape the technical foundation for reliable AI-driven software at global scale.

You will own architecture for critical production systems, mentor engineers, and collaborate across AI/ML, infrastructure, and product teams to deliver end-to-end solutions that