Staff Software Engineer

Artisan; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Equity in the company

High impact on product development

Job summary

A technology startup in San Francisco is seeking an experienced backend developer to build the backend systems for autonomous AI employees. The role involves designing and implementing high-throughput services that enable these AI employees to function effectively in real-world scenarios. The ideal candidate will have over 6 years of experience in backend development, expertise in distributed systems, and familiarity with Cloud-native technologies. This position offers competitive compensation and a unique opportunity to drive impactful outcomes in a small, innovative team.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of backend experience, ideally at a high-growth startup.
• Experience in building and operating data-intensive services at scale.
• Comfortable with cloud-native infrastructure and CI/CD.
• Strong communication skills for explaining system designs.

Responsibilities

• Build backend services for AI employees with high throughput.
• Own architectural decisions and implementation with real ownership.
• Design, build, and deploy infrastructure supporting autonomous decisions.
• Iterate rapidly and ship features frequently.

Skills

Backend development

Distributed systems

API design

TypeScript/Node

Cloud-native infrastructure

Reliability and observability

Clear communication

Tools

PostgreSQL

Kubernetes

ECS

EC2

Job description

We're building AI employees. Not chatbots. Not copilots. Autonomous digital workers that do real jobs.

Our first, Ava, is an AI BDR used by hundreds of companies. She researches leads, writes and sends emails in a customer's voice, runs multi-step outbound sequences, manages her own deliverability infrastructure, self‑optimizes over time and handles objections/meeting booking. She's not a tool someone uses - she's a teammate.

We're a YC W24 company, have raised $35M+ from investors like Y Combinator, and are at $8M+ ARR. Right now we're building Ava 2.0 - a step change in what an AI employee can do. The engineering problems are hard and the surface area is enormous.

What Artisan Is

We're building AI employees. Not chatbots. Not copilots. Autonomous digital workers that do real jobs.

Our first, Ava, is an AI BDR used by hundreds of companies. She researches leads, writes and sends emails in a customer's voice, runs multi-step outbound sequences, manages her own deliverability infrastructure, self‑optimizes over time and handles objections/meeting booking. She's not a tool someone uses - she's a teammate.

We're a YC W24 company, have raised $35M+ from investors like Y Combinator, and are at $8M+ ARR. Right now we're building Ava 2.0 - a step change in what an AI employee can do. The engineering problems are hard and the surface area is enormous.

The Work

You’ll build the backend that makes AI employees possible. Concretely:

• High-throughput AI orchestration. Ava processes millions of signals—lead data, email engagement, deliverability metrics, behavioral patterns—to make autonomous decisions. You’ll build the services and pipelines that make this fast, reliable, and correct.
• Platform infrastructure. Artisan replaces an entire sales stack. That means email infrastructure, CRM, lead database, campaign engine, inbox management, and AI coordination—all in one product. You’ll own real pieces of this.
• High ownership, shipping, end to end. Design it, build it, deploy it, monitor it. We don’t have separate teams for “architecture” and “implementation.” You own the outcome.
• Moving and iterating very fast. You’ll constantly be shipping. We have a completely flat engineering org, so you won’t run into red tape.

Our stack: TypeScript/Node, PostgreSQL, Redis, Kubernetes, Mastra, Temporal, Langfuse, ECS, EC2, deployed on AWS. We release constantly.

Who We’re Looking For

• 6+ years of backend experience, ideally at a high-growth startup where you owned systems.
• A 5x engineer who knows how to leverage Claude Code effectively.
• You’ve built and operated data‑intensive services at scale— you understand distributed systems, database performance, API design, and what it takes to keep things running.
• Comfortable with cloud‑native infrastructure: containers, orchestration, CI/CD, monitoring. You don’t throw code over a wall.
• Strong opinions on reliability, observability, and testing—but pragmatic about when to move fast.
• Clear communicator. Can explain a system design to an engineer or a product lead with equal clarity.
• TypeScript/Node preferred. If your background is Python, Go, or similar that’s fine if the fundamentals are strong.

Why This Role

The problem is genuinely interesting. Autonomous AI agents that interact with real people, manage real infrastructure, and make real decisions— the backend complexity here is non‑trivial and growing fast.

You’ll have real ownership. Small team, large scope. The systems you build will directly power the product customers use. No layers of abstraction between you and impact.

The pace is high and the bar is higher. We ship weekly, iterate constantly, and expect engineers to drive outcomes.

Compensation reflects that. Competitive salary + meaningful equity in a company with real revenue, real traction, and a clear path to a major outcome.

Details

• Full‑time, in‑person: San Francisco or NYC
• Remote considered in rare circumstances