AI Engineer (Core)

Job Description

AI Engineer

Location: San Francisco

Onsite Policy: 5 days a week

Comp & Ben: $180k - $250k base 0.3% - 0.8% equity visa sponsorship relocation support

Most AI companies are building wrappers around existing models.

This company is building the infrastructure and agentic systems that automate real-world commercial real estate development workflows from site sourcing and due diligence through to infrastructure planning and execution.

Their customers already include some of the biggest names in institutional real estate technology and infrastructure.

This isnt a role where you inherit narrow ownership inside a large org. Youll help shape the architecture product direction engineering culture and AI systems from the ground up.

Theyre looking for high-agency software engineers who thrive in ambiguity move fast and care deeply about building high-quality systems. They are less focused on candidates who have spent years training LLMs and more interested in engineers who know how to ship production software think independently and operate with strong ownership.

What Youll Own

• Build and evolve AI-native systems - Work across agent orchestration workflows retrieval systems infrastructure and user-facing product experiences.
• Ship production software fast - Design build debug and improve systems used internally and by enterprise customers every day.
• Own broad technical scope - Engineers work across product backend infrastructure deployment and customer problem-solving.
• Help shape technical direction - Strong opinions are valued. Youll be expected to think critically about architecture tooling frameworks and engineering trade-offs.
• Work closely with a tiny high-calibre team - The company operates with very little process and a high degree of trust ownership and autonomy.

What Theyre Looking For

• Strong software engineering fundamentals: Production experience building scalable systems with real ownership and operational responsibility.
• High agency and startup mentality: Comfortable operating in ambiguity solving problems independently and moving quickly without heavy structure.
• Technical depth: Experience with modern engineering environments across backend infrastructure or full-stack systems.
• Strong communication and technical judgment: Able to defend architectural decisions and communicate trade-offs clearly.
• Curiosity around AI systems: Experience with LLMs agent frameworks or AI-native tooling is a plus but not mandatory.

Technical Environment

• Python Go or Rust
• TypeScript / React
• AWS
• Distributed systems
• Postgres
• CI/CD
• Observability and monitoring
• Agent orchestration systems
• Modern AI tooling and workflows

Ideal Backgrounds

Especially interested in engineers from:

• Early-stage startups
• AI-native companies
• High-bar engineering cultures like Stripe Airbnb Dropbox Palantir Scale AI or similar environments

Candidates with purely research-focused ML backgrounds or candidates looking for highly defined 9-5 scope are unlikely to be a fit.

Why This Opportunity Is Worth Your Time

This is the kind of environment where youll work hard move fast and build systems with outsized impact. If you want broad ownership and the chance to help define what AI-native software looks like in the real world apply now!