Staff Engineer

About the Company

Confidential Search - Client Name Withheld

Our client is an early-stage, venture-backed AI company building an operating system for consumer lending, beginning with mortgage. The company works with some of the largest mortgage lenders in the United States, using AI voice agents to scale contact center and compliance operations.

It is backed by institutional investors and senior operators from the fintech and technology sectors, and operates as a small, tightly integrated team with direct founder involvement.

About the Role

Staff Engineer Confidential Search

The Staff Engineer is a hands-on generalist who will architect and own the core systems behind real-time AI voice and compliance workflows used in regulated bank and lender environments.

This person owns design and architecture across the entire product, not a single silo, and is accountable for performance, reliability, and delivery from whiteboard to live production.

The role sits inside a small engineering team and works side by side with the founders across infrastructure, backend, and AI reliability. Speed and ownership are central: features frequently move from design to production within days.

This is an ideal fit for an engineer who wants outsized scope and impact at an early-stage company, rather than a narrow remit inside a large organization.

Job ID: H47YLVFR

• Job ID: H47YLVFR
• Location: San Francisco, CA (downtown)
• Work Policy: Fully on-site, 5 days per week
• Employment Type: Full-time, direct hire
• Compensation: $250,000 – $320,000 base, plus competitive equity
• Experience Level: 3+ years as a software engineer (4+ preferred); range of 3–10 years
• Visa / Work Authorization: Open to visa transfers (e.g., OPT, H-1B transfers)
• Relocation: Relocation benefits available
• Openings: 7–11 hires
• Reports To: [Confirm with client]

Responsibilities

• Architecture & Ownership. Architect and own core systems that power real-time AI voice and compliance workflows for major banks and mortgage lenders.
• Performance & Latency. Drive performance and reliability, targeting sub-700ms latency through event-driven architecture and parallel processing.
• Infrastructure. Deploy, operate, and scale resilient distributed systems on Kubernetes.
• End-to-End Delivery. Lead features from whiteboard design through live production in bank environments, often shipping within days.
• Self-Improving AI. Build and refine an AI system that improves with every customer interaction and human feedback signal.
• Data Layer. Design and optimize databases for correctness, scale, and performance under real-time load.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration. Partner closely with the founders and the rest of the engineering team across infrastructure, backend, and AI reliability, with no siloed teams.
• Reliability Engineering. Build for fault tolerance and operational resilience in production systems that serve regulated, high-stakes customers.

Confidential Search - Client Name Withheld | Job ID: H47YLVFR | Page 1

WHY THIS OPPORTUNITY

• Own architecture across an entire product at a company deploying AI voice agents with some of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders.
• Work directly with the founders in a small team with no siloed functions.
• Ship quickly: designs routinely reach live production in days.
• Work on difficult technical problems: real-time systems, sub-700ms latency, and a system that learns from every interaction.
• Compensation of $250K–$320K plus competitive equity, with relocation support and a trust-based culture.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, with a preference for a top-tier program.
• 3–10 years of professional experience as a software engineer (at least 3 years; 4+ preferred).
• Has owned production backend services end to end, not only contributed to them.
• Track record of shipping reliable production systems from design through deployment.
• Experience building high-performance, real-time backend or full-stack systems.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, reliability, and fault tolerance.
• Excellent database design and performance optimization skills.
• Working familiarity with AI and large language models (LLMs); prior agent-building experience is not required.
• Comfortable owning architecture across the full product in a small, fast-moving, in-office team.

Required Skills

• Technical: Python, Kubernetes, distributed systems, event-driven architecture, LLMs, databases, real-time backend systems.
• Working style: High ownership, bias to action, comfort with ambiguity, and clear communication with founders and peers.
• Judgment: Sound architectural decision-making under tight timelines in regulated customer environments.

Preferred Skills

• Experience training, designing, or building production AI/ML systems.
• Startup or founder experience, or a path from a top-tier technology company to a startup or mid-size company.
• Proficiency in Python. The role is language-agnostic, but the team works primarily in Python.

Pay range and compensation package

• Compensation: $250,000 – $320,000 base, plus competitive equity.
• Compensation of $250K–$320K plus competitive equity, with relocation support and a trust-based culture.
• BaseSalary: $250,000 – $320,000.
• Equity: Competitive.
• Schedule: Fully on-site five days per week. Hours are not strictly prescribed; the team tends to arrive early and generally works roughly 8:00 AM to 5:00 or 6:00 PM, with a trust-based culture that allows flexibility for personal time.
• Location: Downtown San Francisco, CA. Relocation benefits are available.
• Visa: Open to visa transfers (e.g., OPT, H-1B transfers).</