Staff Software Engineer, AI

Talanto; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Talanto is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the AI Platform team, owning architecture decisions and driving technical strategy for agentic AI capabilities. You will work hands-on in a TypeScript environment on Cloudflare Workers, while multiplying the output and growth of engineers on the team.

You will mentor engineers, enforce design quality, and collaborate with Product Management to align roadmaps with business goals.

Qualifications

• Production experience with TypeScript and a large codebase.
• Hands-on history building agentic or LLM-powered features.
• Expertise in edge computing and distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Own AI platform architecture and technical strategy.
• Lead design reviews, go/no-go releases, and cross-team planning.
• Design and build core AI platform components and integrations.
• Mentor engineers and raise the team's technical bar.
• Collaborate with product management to shape roadmaps.

Skills

TypeScript

Distributed Systems

AI/LLM

Data Streaming

API Design

Database & Persistence

Cloud Platforms

Observability

Tools

Cloudflare

Anthropic Claude

D1/Drizzle

OpenTelemetry

Datadog

Kafka/Redpanda

Job description

Important: if an employer asks you to log into their system via iCloud or Google, send a code, an SMS or Telegram password, run some code, or install software — refuse. These are signs of fraud.

is The Consumer Experience Company, powering seamless checkout through delivery for today's leading brands. is rapidly growing and is on track to double our revenue in the next 18 months. To meet and exceed this target, is strategically scaling teams across the entire company, and seeking energetic experts to help us achieve our mission.

By combining comprehensive commerce-enablement technology with high-volume fulfillment services, provides brands a platform to compete with retail giants. manages over $10 billion of commerce annually through its fulfillment, warehousing, transportation, and operator-built software suite including OMS, Pre- and Post-Purchase, and WMS platforms. is leveling the playing field for all brands to deliver the best consumer experience at scale.

With , brands can increase cart conversion, improve unit economics, and drive sustained customer loyalty. ’s end-to-end commerce solutions combine best-in-class omnichannel fulfillment and shipping with leading technology to ensure fast shipping, reliable delivery promises, easy access to more channels, and improved margins on every order.

Hundreds of leading DTC and B2B companies like AG1, True Classic, Native, Seed Health, quip, goodr, Sundays for Dogs, and more trust to deliver industry-leading consumer experiences on every order. is headquartered in Atlanta with facilities across the United States, Canada, and Europe. is backed by top-tier investors including Kleiner Perkins, Franklin Templeton, Founders Fund, Strike Capital, Baillie Gifford, and Salesforce Ventures.

is revolutionizing the logistics industry with our cloud-based supply chain platform. Our AI team builds intelligent, LLM-driven features — including conversational agents, automated workflows, and AI-powered decision support — that are deeply integrated across 's product suite.

We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to serve as the technical lead of the AI Platform team. This is not a heads-down IC role — you will be the technical pillar of the team, owning architecture decisions, driving technical strategy, and raising the quality bar for everyone around you. You'll work hands-on in our TypeScript-based AI platform built on Cloudflare Workers while simultaneously multiplying the output and growth of the engineers on your team.

The right person for this role has strong opinions, loosely held — informed by deep experience, not by pasting LLM output into a design doc. You have a track record of building and shipping agentic AI systems in production, and you know how to direct AI-assisted development toward high-quality outcomes rather than accepting whatever comes out of the model.

About the Role

is revolutionizing the logistics industry with our cloud-based supply chain platform. Our AI team builds intelligent, LLM-driven features — including conversational agents, automated workflows, and AI-powered decision support — that are deeply integrated across 's product suite.

We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to serve as the technical lead of the AI Platform team. This is not a heads-down IC role — you will be the technical pillar of the team, owning architecture decisions, driving technical strategy, and raising the quality bar for everyone around you. You'll work hands-on in our TypeScript-based AI platform built on Cloudflare Workers while simultaneously multiplying the output and growth of the engineers on your team.

The right person for this role has strong opinions, loosely held — informed by deep experience, not by pasting LLM output into a design doc. You have a track record of building and shipping agentic AI systems in production, and you know how to direct AI-assisted development toward high-quality outcomes rather than accepting whatever comes out of the model.

What You’ll Do

Technical Leadership & Strategy

• Own the technical vision and architecture of 's AI platform, making decisive design choices and communicating the "why" to stakeholders at all levels

• Drive technical strategy in partnership with the Sr Engineering Manager and Sr Product Manager, translating product goals into sound engineering plans

• Evaluate build-vs-buy decisions, new tools, and architectural patterns with a pragmatic, production-first mindset

• Establish and enforce technical quality standards through design reviews, code reviews, and architectural guidance

• Show up — be present and accountable in critical ceremonies including design reviews, go/no-go releases, sprint planning, and cross-team syncs

Hands-On Engineering

• Design and build core components of our AI platform: agent orchestration, tool systems, prompt management, and integration APIs

• Work daily in our TypeScript stack: Hono on Cloudflare Workers, Durable Objects for stateful agents, D1/Drizzle for persistence, and the AI SDK (Anthropic Claude) for model interaction

• Build robust, scope-aware tool systems that safely expose platform capabilities (orders, inventory, knowledge base) to AI agents

• Design fault-tolerant integrations with downstream services, including Elixir/Phoenix APIs, and ensure graceful degradation

• Integrate ML model outputs via API layers as the team's needs evolve, without requiring deep data science expertise

Team Multiplier

• Be the engineer other engineers go to — cultivate trust and influence with senior and mid-level engineers through consistent technical excellence and availability

• Mentor engineers at all levels, with particular emphasis on growing senior engineers into more autonomous technical decision-makers

• Model and teach directed agentic development practices: how to use AI coding tools effectively, maintain a strong independent technical POV, and produce high-quality results rather than accepting raw model output uncritically

• Create leverage through reusable abstractions, clear documentation of architectural decisions, and developer tooling that makes the rest of the team faster

• Proactively identify technical risks and opportunities — don't wait to be assigned a ticket

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Product Management to shape the AI product roadmap, providing technical perspective on feasibility, sequencing, and trade-offs

• Work with the Group Principal Engineer to align AI platform architecture with broader engineering strategy

• Collaborate with Data Scientists and ML Engineers to understand model requirements and design clean integration boundaries

• Support other product engineering teams in adopting AI capabilities within their domains

What You’ll Need

Required Technical Skills

• TypeScript (3+ years in production) — You write idiomatic, well-structured TypeScript and are comfortable owning a large TypeScript codebase. This is the primary language of the AI platform.

• Distributed Systems & Edge Computing — Experience designing stateful systems at the edge. Cloudflare Workers, Durable Objects, or similar edge runtime experience is strongly preferred.

• AI/LLM Application Development — You have built and shipped agentic or LLM-powered features in production. You understand prompt engineering, tool/function calling, context management, and the practical challenges of making AI systems reliable.

• Data Streaming Platforms — Experience consuming from or integrating with event streaming systems (Redpanda preferred, Kafka acceptable). Familiarity with Redpanda Connect or Kafka Connect for building data pipelines that feed AI features is a plus.

• API Design & Integration — Experience designing and consuming RESTful APIs, OpenAPI specifications, and event-driven architectures. You'll integrate with multiple backend services daily.

• Database & Persistence — Strong SQL fundamentals. Experience with embedded/edge databases (D1, SQLite) or PostgreSQL. Drizzle ORM experience is a plus.

• Cloud Platforms — Hands-on experience with Cloudflare, GCP, or AWS. Understanding of serverless and edge deployment models.

• Observability — Experience instrumenting production systems with OpenTelemetry, Datadog, or similar. You know what to measure and how to debug distributed systems in production.

Required Leadership Skills

• Technical Authority — You form well-reasoned technical opinions based on experience and analysis, and you can defend them in a room of strong engineers. You don't outsource your judgment to an LLM.

• Force Multiplier Mindset — You measure your impact by team output, not personal ticket velocity. You actively seek opportunities to unblock, teach, and elevate others.

• Accountability & Presence — You show up for the team. You're in the design reviews, the release meetings, the architecture discussions. You own outcomes, not just code.

• Communication & Influence — You can explain complex technical decisions to PMs, executives, and junior engineers alike. You build consensus through clarity, not authority.

• Directed AI-Assisted Development — You know how to use AI coding tools as a force multiplier while maintaining quality. More importantly, you can teach a team to do the same — establishing practices that produce better results than unguided AI output.

Nice to Have

• Elixir/Phoenix experience or familiarity (downstream services use Elixir)

• Experience with the Cloudflare developer platform (Workers, Durable Objects, Sandboxes, Containers, D1, R2, Vectorize, AI Gateway, Workflows, Queues)

• Experience with Anthropic Claude, the AI SDK (ai / @ai-sdk/anthropic), or Model Context Protocol (MCP)

• Knowledge of logistics, e-commerce, or supply chain domains

• Contributions to open-source TypeScript or AI projects

• Experience with WebSocket-based real-time systems

• Familiarity with scope-based authorization and multi-tenant systems

About the Team

The AI Platform team is a small, high-impact group of software engineers, data scientists, and data engineers building the AI capabilities that span 's product suite. You'll report to the Sr Engineering Manager of the AI team.

This is a high-autonomy, high-accountability environment. We ship frequently, we expect strong technical ownership, and we value engineers who make the people around them better.