Staff Software Engineer - AI Applications

Description

The company runs AI-native performance advertising. It was founded in 2013 by machine learning engineers who had built ad systems at some of the largest technology firms.

It runs two businesses on one shared compound AI system: an ad platform that helps mobile app marketers win and keep high-value users across the open web, and a retail media platform that lets retailers and marketplaces build ad businesses.

This role sits on the AI Applications team, part of the company's generative AI effort. The team works higher in the AI stack than infrastructure, close to the people who use its tools. Most of the work is new, with only a small base in place.

The team's aim is to change how work gets done rather than just speed up tasks, using shared guardrails, security and standards that every team builds on.

Responsibilities

• Own products from identifying the problem through launch and ongoing operation.
• Build internal AI products and tools that make the company run more efficiently.
• Use generative AI to improve how internal teams serve customers.
• Help improve the end customer experience with AI, starting with a lighter focus.
• Build safe shared foundations for AI-built apps, including hosting, key management, spend caps, permissions and provisioning.
• Help redesign core workflows around AI from the ground up, such as customer onboarding through upsell, recruiting from sourcing to offer, and quarterly planning and forecasting.
• Review SaaS tools and replace selected ones with custom AI-first builds where that works better, such as consolidating business intelligence tools and open-weights proposals.

Requirements

• 8+ years building software professionally, with a record of taking complex systems that span several teams from start to finish.
• Hands-on experience designing LLM-powered applications at production scale, such as agentic systems, retrieval-augmented generation or tool-using assistants, and weighing latency, cost, reliability and quality tradeoffs.
• Experience with agent frameworks or orchestration, such as LangGraph or custom agent loops, and with multi-step reasoning systems.
• A record of designing evaluation and monitoring for AI products that other engineers adopt and build on.
• Strong systems design skills, with the ability to set architecture and technical standards that several teams can build on without close direction, covering shared infrastructure, guardrails and APIs.
• Working knowledge across frontend, backend and infrastructure, with judgment on when to go deep and when to delegate.
• Experience shaping technical direction beyond your own team, such as setting engineering standards, mentoring senior engineers or leading technical strategy for a product area.
• A history of spotting high-leverage problems yourself rather than only working an assigned list, and convincing stakeholders and leadership to act on them.
• Preferred: experience building or leading internal AI platform capabilities such as key management, spend caps, permissioning and hosting for AI-built apps.
• Preferred: a track record of leading a SaaS rationalization or build-versus-buy effort that resulted in AI-first custom replacements.
• Preferred: experience redesigning a critical business workflow around AI, not just automating a task, for example in recruiting, customer lifecycle or planning and forecasting.
• Preferred: prior work in a platform or infrastructure-adjacent role that also required strong product instincts.
• Preferred: public or internal thought leadership on agent architectures, evaluation or applied LLM engineering.
• Preferred: comfort operating with minimal process, setting technical direction in a greenfield environment and shaping team practices as the team grows.

Conditions

Base pay by region, based on the assigned work location. Region A (Menlo Park, New York, SF Bay Area, New York metro area): $220,000 - $275,000 USD. Region B (Seattle, Los Angeles/Orange County, San Diego, Austin, Boston, Washington DC metro area, Miami): $198,000 - $247,500 USD. Region C (all other U.S. locations): $187,200 - $234,000 USD.

The successful candidate may be eligible for a bonus and equity awards, based on performance and the terms of the applicable plans.

Interviews are designed to get to know you. Unless a round specifically assesses AI use, do not use AI during it. Read the AI Use in Interviews Policy before your interview, as failing to follow it may affect your candidacy.

Benefits

• U.S.-based employees get medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) with company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and well-being perks.
• U.S.-based employees receive up to 12 scheduled paid holidays per calendar year and one Thrive Day off per quarter.
• All employees have Flexible Time Off.
• Benefits vary by country, employment type and eligibility. A recruiter can explain what applies in your region.