Staff Software Engineer

CHAI AI; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 609,000 - 905,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401k

Unlimited PTO

Job summary

CHAI AI is a social AI platform where millions of people create, share, and talk to AI characters. The engineering team is small (15–20 people) with a flat structure, enabling high impact and fast iteration.

You will fit a fleet of models into a fixed GPU budget to serve 10 million users with low latency and low error rate in production. Compensation is top-tier for a Bay Area AI startup, with $609,000 - $905,000 paid 100% in cash, benchmarked against Meta, Google, and OpenAI, plus health, 401k,

Qualifications

• 2+ years of software engineering experience.
• High motivation and talent.
• High ownership: comfortable with ambiguity, able to define the problem and plan.
• Able to work in person at Palo Alto Office.

Responsibilities

• Fit a fleet of models into a fixed GPU budget for production use.
• Serve 10 million users with low latency and low error rate.
• Collaborate with an engineering team to iterate quickly and measure impact.

Skills

Software engineering

Ownership

Ambiguity tolerance

In-person work

Job description

CHAI is a social AI platform where millions of people create, share, and talk to AI characters. As of Sep 2026, it has 10 million active users and $100 million ARR. After receiving over $55M in funding from investors such as AMD and CoreWeave, CHAI AI is actively hiring engineers to expand its team.

About the team

Engineering is 15-20 people with a flat structure. High impact on the product, fast iteration, and clear metrics to measure against.

What you will work on

We're looking for an engineer who can fit a fleet of models into a fixed GPU budget, serve 10 million users on it, and for use in a high-volume, low-latency, low-error rate in production environment.

You might thrive in this role if you…

• 2+ years of software engineering experience
• High motivation and talented.
• High ownership: comfortable with ambiguity, able to define the problem and the plan rather than execute a predefined spec.
• Able to work in person at our Palo Alto Office.

Compensation and benefits

Top pay AI startup in Bay Area. $609,000 - $905,000, paid 100% in cash.

We benchmark against total comp at Meta, Google, and OpenAI - and pay that number in cash, not equity, with the option to trade a portion of cash for stock options.

Health, 401k, unlimited PTO.

We run a fast process - an offer can be given within 7 days of first contact.

• 20 minute phone screen with our founder or engineer
• 20 minute personality assessment
• Take home assessment. 60-90 minutes to complete.