Staff Software Engineer, AI Foundations (AI Agent Optimization)

Temporal; San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, New York (CA, MA, WA, NY); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Temporal is hiring a Staff Software Engineer - Agent Optimization in San Francisco to lead our agent optimization efforts and design systems for token-efficient, fast, high-quality agent execution. You will work with AI Foundations on architectures, policy, and ecosystem integrations, contributing to open source projects.

You will collaborate across Python/TypeScript/Java/Go, drive end-to-end feature ownership, and share best practices with developers and customers.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proven experience in optimizing AI systems using machine learning and systems techniques.
• Experience with generative AI, particularly for agents and coding.
• Strong concurrency and safe use of mutexes, atomics, and other primitives.
• Experience designing APIs and writing documentation for libraries or modules.
• Excellent technical communication skills in English.
• Ability to learn and work with multiple programming languages.

Responsibilities

• Work as a software engineer on agent optimization initiatives.
• Maintain and expand understanding of agentic coding practices.
• Design and build agentic coding systems with reliable outputs.
• Develop understanding of AI application development patterns and architectures.
• Take end-to-end ownership of new features with other teams for reliability and UX.
• Collaborate across languages: Python, TypeScript, Java, Go.
• Document Temporal concepts and APIs publicly.
• Provide expert support to customers when needed.
• Travel once or twice a year for team collaboration.
• Attend developer conferences as an option.

Skills

8+ years exp

AI systems optimization

Generative AI for agents

Concurrent programming

API design

Documentation

Multi-language programming

English communication

Education

BS/MS in Computer Science

Job description

Role Summary

We have an opening to hire a Staff Software Engineer - Agent Optimization

Temporal provides a reliable foundation powering AI leaders such as OpenAI, NVIDIA, Cursor, Lovable, and others. Its adoption is expanding to users spanning a broad range of AI applications ranging from agents to data pipelines and everything in between.

The mission of the AI Foundations team is to accelerate Temporal adoption across the entire ecosystem. Our approach combines a deep understanding of use cases with rigorous application of computer systems and software design principles.

In this role, you will lead our agent optimization efforts. You will design tools and mechanisms to help Temporal users build agents that are optimized for token spend and response time while maintaining result quality. Model routing is a first step, but represents the tip of the iceberg of techniques that we can apply. For example, multi-agent architecture, cache policy, and context management are all relevant. Candidates for this role should have direct experience with this problem domain.

You will work closely with other AI Foundations team members, e.g., those who focus on agentic development, maintaining a set of agents skills that lift performance of Codex, Claude Code, and similar tools for developers of Temporal applications. Other team members build ecosystem integrations or develop policy and security systems.

If you thrive on blending theory and practice, then this is the right team for you. We are an action-oriented group that loves to ship fast and solve customer problems. We also seek thorough technical grounding for our work and invest in systems and practices that foster long-term success.

Most of Temporal’s work is open source—see for yourself here: https://github.com/temporalio [new window]

What You’ll Do

• Work as a software engineer




• Maintain and expand a deep understanding of agentic coding




• Design and build agentic coding systems that we can trust to deliver high-quality outputs




• Develop a deep understanding of AI application development patterns and techniques, including emerging approaches and architectures.




• Take end-to-end ownership of new features, working with other teams to deliver exceptional reliability and a great developer experience.




• Work with multiple programming languages: Python and TypeScript, Java, Go.




• Serve as a domain expert on AI design patterns, collaborating with field staff to provide best-practices and canonical examples.




• Work directly with our developer community to debug issues that need expert attention and get feedback on Temporal features and APIs.




• Write public technical documentation describing Temporal concepts and APIs.




• Go the extra mile to support a customer in need, on the rare occasion that our teams’ engineering expertise is needed.




• Travel to meet your coworkers for a week once or twice a year.




• Attend the occasional developer conference to talk about how great Temporal is (optional).

What You’ll Bring

• 8+ years of professional work experience.




• Proven experience in optimizing AI systems using both machine learning and systems techniques




• Experience and passion for harnessing generative AI, particularly for agents and coding.




• A deep appreciation for how to use AI to improve quality, not only to increase quantity.




• A sense of taste in code and software development practice. Your approach should be opinionated and thoughtful, but not dogmatic.




• Fluency in multiple programming languages, and an affinity for learning new ones.




• Deep experience with concurrent programming—you should know how to use mutexes, atomics, and other concurrency primitives safely.




• Experience designing APIs and writing documentation for publicly-available libraries or modules.




• Strong technical communication skills—written and verbal—in English.




• BS or MS in Computer Science (or a closely-related degree), or equivalent work experience writing production-grade software.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with Temporal’s programming model (e.g. you’ve written an app on Temporal).




• A track record of open source software contributions, including contributions to 3rd party libraries.




• Experience contributing to the architecture and design of large-scale distributed systems.




• Deep background in machine learning, model training, data science, or machine learning systems.




• Graduate degree in Computer Science.

Temporal Technologies is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Temporal Technologies does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. We embrace and celebrate differences and diversity.

Temporal is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. If you need to request a reasonable accommodation, please let your Recruiter know so we can assist.