Staff Software Engineer, Foundation Model API

United States Digital Space LLC; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 265,000; Full time

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC is seeking an experienced backend/infrastructure engineer to help build and scale data and AI platforms in San Francisco. You’ll work on LLM infrastructure, large‑scale inference, real‑time services, and collaborate with platform, infra, and ML teams to deliver enterprise‑grade solutions.

You’ll own features from roadmap to production, shape the FMAPI product through customer feedback, improve reliability and latency, and empower developers and data scientists to

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in backend or infrastructure engineering.
• Experience with distributed systems, scalable APIs, or cloud-native infrastructure.
• Strong product and ownership mindset, with a focus on shipping user-facing value.
• Experience with real-time serving, ML infrastructure, or GPU orchestration.
• Familiarity with service-oriented architecture, deployment pipelines, and system observability.
• Strong programming skills in Scala, Go, or Python.

Responsibilities

• Build LLM infrastructure powering large-scale inference workloads for customers through partner models and self-hosted models.
• Shape the direction of the FMAPI product — from roadmap to execution — by leveraging deep customer empathy and direct engagement with enterprise users and model providers.
• Improve reliability, latency, and efficiency of distributed AI workloads.
• Collaborate with platform, infra, and ML teams to deliver seamless end-to-end experiences.
• Shape how developers and data scientists build and interact with AI on the company.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Product ownership

Real-time serving

SOA / microservices

Scala/Go/Python

Job description

At the company, we are passionate about enabling data and AI teams to solve the world's toughest problems — from making the next mode of transportation a reality to accelerating the development of medical breakthroughs. We do this by building and running the world's best data and AI infrastructure platform so our customers can use deep data insights to improve their business.

As part of the AI team, you’ll build the platforms and products that power everything from data apps, AI agents, model training, model serving, and Vector Search. You’ll be joining a high‑agency, high‑visibility team operating at the frontier of AI infrastructure — with deep ties to research, product, and real‑world enterprise use cases.

The impact you will have:

• Build LLM infrastructure powering large‑scale inference workloads for customers through partner models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini) and self‑hosted models (Qwen, GPT‑OSS, Llama)
• Shape the direction of the FMAPI product — from roadmap to execution — by leveraging deep customer empathy and direct engagement with enterprise users and model providers
• Improve reliability, latency, and efficiency of distributed AI workloads
• Collaborate with platform, infra, and ML teams to deliver seamless end‑to‑end experiences
• Shape how developers and data scientists build and interact with AI on the company

What we look for:

• 8+ years of experience in backend or infrastructure engineering
• Experience with distributed systems, scalable APIs, or cloud‑native infrastructure
• Strong product and ownership mindset, with a focus on shipping user‑facing value
• Experience with real‑time serving, ML infrastructure, or GPU orchestration
• Familiarity with service‑oriented architecture, deployment pipelines, and system observability
• Strong programming skills in Scala, Go, or Python

Bonus points for:

• Exposure to platforms like SageMaker, Vertex AI, or Azure ML
• Built products that support AI workflows

Local Pay Range

$190,000 — $265,000 USD