Staff Software Architect, AI-Driven SaaS

AppFolio; Goleta (CA); On-site; USD 167,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

AppFolio is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to drive the architectural evolution of the Leasing Engineering Domain. This hands-on leadership role guides the next-generation agentic AI products and the SaaS infrastructure that makes customer operations smoother and more automated.

You will mentor teams, shape system design, and bridge ML, product, and UX, delivering scalable, reliable solutions while maintaining pragmatic engineering practices in a high-ambiguity environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of building and scaling web apps in SaaS.
• Led architectural decisions across teams and product lines.
• Experience integrating AI/ML into production systems.
• Pragmatic, maintainable architecture with refactoring mindset.
• Focus on long-term system health and reliability.

Responsibilities

• Drive technical vision and architecture for Leasing AI products.
• Lead design and implementation of distributed systems at scale.
• Mentor engineers and establish coding standards.
• Collaborate with Product, Design, and ML to align tech with value.
• Own full lifecycle from discovery to production.
• Explore new technologies to improve quality and delivery speed.
• Balance innovation with security and reliability.

Skills

8+ years exp

Architectural leadership

AI/ML in prod

SaaS discipline

Education

Bachelor's/Master's/PhD in CS or related

Tools

Ruby on Rails

React

AWS

Job description

AppFolio is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to drive the architectural evolution of the Leasing Engineering Domain. This hands-on leadership role guides the next-generation agentic AI products and the SaaS infrastructure that makes customer operations smoother and more automated.

You will mentor teams, shape system design, and bridge ML, product, and UX, delivering scalable, reliable solutions while maintaining pragmatic engineering practices in a high-ambiguity environment.