Staff Software Engineer

Magical; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Magical is looking for a Staff Software Engineer in San Francisco to shape the technical direction of its AI systems. This hybrid role involves driving product delivery, mentoring peers, and enhancing engineering standards while working closely with the code.

The ideal candidate has over 8 years of experience in software development, leading impactful backend projects, and a strong grasp of systems design. Join us to innovate healthcare workflows.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software development experience.
• Experience leading complex backend or platform projects.
• Strong systems design instincts including distributed systems and databases.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction for core agent systems.
• Lead backend and full-stack projects that advance the product.
• Mentor teammates and improve engineering practices.

Skills

Software development experience

Systems design instincts

AI integration

Mentoring teammates

Job description

About the Role

As a Staff Software Engineer, you’ll shape the technical direction of Magical’s AI agent systems. You’ll drive product delivery, elevate engineering standards, mentor peers, and stay hands‑on with the code.

Magical orchestrates complex, high‑stakes healthcare workflows involving queues, run state, browser automation, model calls, system evaluations, observability, and human‑in‑the‑loop recovery.

You’ll transform messy customer inputs—SOPs, decision trees, portal behaviors, edge cases—into robust automations. This means building systems that draft workflows, test them, catch failures, suggest improvements, and trigger human intervention when necessary. You’ll also focus on runtime reliability, workflow pathways, evaluations, and specialized agents for repeatable healthcare workflows.

This is a hybrid role based in our San Francisco office.

What You’ll Do

• Set the technical direction for core agent systems—automation building, runtime reliability, evaluations, and observability
• Lead ambiguous backend and full‑stack projects that materially advance the product
• Improve engineering practices through better architecture, faster feedback loops, stronger code reviews, and clear standards
• Mentor teammates through pairing sessions, code reviews, and by modeling strong engineering practices

You May Be a Fit If

• You have 8+ years of software development experience.
• You’ve led complex backend or platform projects with real production impact
• You turn ambiguous product goals into clear, executable technical direction
• You bring strong systems design instincts: distributed systems, databases, APIs, queues, asynchronous workflows, and observability
• You have experience integrating AI tools into your workflow and experiment with unconventional solutions
• You elevate engineers around you while staying close to the code
• You possess high agency, strong ownership, and excel at prioritizing what matters

Even Better

• Experience with platform, infrastructure, or workflow systems at scale
• Experience building agentic products or agent‑based workflows
• Experience integrating LLMs or AI models into production backend systems
• Background in event‑driven architectures, workflow engines, observability, or runtime reliability
• Prior experience in healthcare operations or revenue cycle management