AI Engineer / Staff Agent Engineer

Job Type: Full-Time

Experience: 5–10 Years

Seniority: Senior / Staff Level

Location: New York City, NY or San Francisco, CA, USA

Work Mode: On-site, 5 Days a Week

Salary: $200,000–$300,000 USD per year + Competitive Equity

Open Positions: 1–2

Visa Support: Eligible visa transfers considered

Relocation: Available, including relocation assistance for eligible candidates moving to New York

Job Summary

We are seeking an exceptional Applied AI Engineer / Staff Agent Engineer to join our founding engineering team and build next-generation AI-powered systems for the industrial supply chain and staffing industry. In this role, you will design, build, and scale AI agents that automate complex operational workflows, improve workforce matching, streamline candidate verification, and help businesses make better decisions using intelligent automation. This is a high-ownership engineering opportunity for someone who has built and shipped AI agent products from scratch, enjoys solving complex technical challenges, and thrives in fast-growing startup environments. You will contribute to both applied AI product development and foundational platform engineering, with the opportunity to influence architecture, technical strategy, and long-term product direction.

Key Responsibilities

Applied AI and Product Engineering

• Design and implement AI-powered agents to automate staffing and workforce management workflows.
• Build intelligent systems for worker sourcing, screening, verification, matching, and shift placement.
• Architect and develop scalable backend services, APIs, and distributed systems.
• Develop real-time matching and automated vetting pipelines using machine learning and AI agents.
• Own product features end-to-end, from problem discovery and technical design to deployment and optimization.
• Improve platform performance, reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, and operations teams to deliver measurable business outcomes.

AI Agent Platform Engineering

• Architect and develop end-to-end AI agent platforms, including orchestration runtimes, tool integrations, and execution frameworks.
• Design model strategies, prompt systems, retrieval mechanisms, memory architectures, and agent evaluation frameworks.
• Build evaluation datasets, automated graders, regression suites, and experimentation tools to measure agent quality.
• Implement monitoring, observability, and reliability mechanisms for production AI systems.
• Integrate AI agents with internal and customer enterprise systems, including Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), Transportation Management Systems (TMS), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms.
• Establish best practices for AI-assisted software development and production deployment.
• Work directly with customers and operational teams to identify problems and convert insights into scalable product capabilities.
• Contribute to technical strategy, architectural decisions, and long-term platform development.
• Mentor engineers and support the growth of the engineering team.

Required Qualifications

• 5–10 years of professional software engineering experience, preferably in early-stage or high-growth startups.
• Proven experience building and launching 0-to-1 AI agent products in production environments.
• Demonstrated ownership of products or features from conception through deployment, with measurable business impact.
• Strong hands-on expertise in Python and/or TypeScript/Node.js.
• Experience designing distributed systems, backend services, APIs, and scalable data models.
• Strong proficiency with PostgreSQL and event-driven technologies such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, or similar messaging systems.
• Practical experience with AI agent orchestration, production deployment, evaluation, and observability.
• Strong understanding of the trade-offs between prompting, fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and conventional software logic.
• Experience implementing testing, monitoring, regression evaluation, and reliability practices for AI applications.
• Strong product mindset, problem-solving ability, and end-to-end technical ownership.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, ambiguous startup environment.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field, preferably from a highly regarded university.
• Willingness to work on-site five days per week in New York City or San Francisco.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AI-native marketplaces, staffing platforms, or multi-sided marketplace products.
• Background in matching algorithms, recommendation systems, workforce optimization, or credential verification.
• Experience building products for logistics, supply chain, manufacturing, healthcare, or other traditional industries.
• Familiarity with React, React Native, and modern full-stack development.
• Experience integrating AI agents with enterprise platforms and third-party APIs.
• Experience working directly with customers to understand operational challenges and translate them into technical solutions.
• Experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical architecture in a growing startup.

Ideal Candidate Profile

We are looking for a hands-on engineering leader who:

• Has a strong track record of building products from zero to one.
• Combines deep technical expertise with strong product judgment.
• Has shipped AI agent systems that operate reliably in production.
• Takes ownership of business outcomes rather than focusing solely on code delivery.
• Thrives in high-velocity environments and is comfortable making decisions with incomplete information.
• Demonstrates consistent career progression and meaningful contributions within previous teams.
• Enjoys collaborating across engineering, product, and operations.

Compensation and Benefits

• Annual base salary of $200,000–$300,000 USD.
• Competitive equity package.
• Relocation assistance available for eligible candidates moving to New York.
• Opportunity to build foundational AI technology with significant product and architectural ownership.
• Direct collaboration with senior leadership and cross-functional teams.
• Opportunity to influence the future of AI-powered staffing and industrial operations.

Work Location

New York City, NY or San Francisco, CA, USA

This is a full-time, in-person role requiring attendance at the office five days per week.

Visa Requirements

Eligible visa transfers are considered, including qualifying H-1B transfers and OPT candidates where applicable.

New H-1B sponsorship through the lottery is not available.

Candidates should confirm their current work authorization status during the initial screening.

Interview Process

The selection process may include:

• Recruiter screening.
• Hiring manager interview.
• Technical assessment and team interviews.
• Technical deep dives and cross-functional discussions.
• Final leadership interview.

How to Apply

If you are an experienced software engineer passionate about applied AI, autonomous agents, scalable systems, and building high-impact products, we encourage you to apply. Please submit your updated resume highlighting your AI agent development experience, startup background, production deployments, technical ownership, and measurable product outcomes.

Join a high-growth engineering team building the next generation of AI-powered industrial automation.

Pay: $200,000.00 - $300,000.00 per year

Work Location: In person