Principal Software Engineer

San Francisco, CA - Hybrid (on-site) - Full-time

Compensation: $220K-$280K + equity

Our client is a seed-stage (pre-Series A) AI company reimagining how organizations put artificial intelligence to work. Their platform brings enterprise-grade AI across dozens of workplace applications at a fraction of typical inference cost, with no custom engineering required, and is already gaining traction with real enterprise customers. You would join a small, fast-moving team early enough that your work shapes the core of the product and your equity carries meaningful upside.

Founded 2023 - approximately 25 people - Industry: AI, Enterprise, B2B

We are hiring a Principal Software Engineer to own the architecture and technical roadmap for a core domain of the product. This is a hands-on role: you will ship high-quality code daily while providing technical leadership and mentorship, and tackle the hardest problems across distributed systems and AI infrastructure.

What you will be doing

• Ship code daily and own products from zero to one, from system design through deployment
• Own the architecture and technical roadmap for a core domain
• Drive cross-team technical initiatives with measurable business impact, including incident response and post-mortems
• Represent the company externally through talks, writing, or open-source, and help shape the engineering culture

Tech stack: GoLang, TypeScript, Python

• 10+ years of full-stack software engineering experience, with a track record of building 0-to-1 in production
• Demonstrated ownership of a product end to end, from system design through deployment
• Experience leading technical initiatives across teams without formal authority
• Experience defining SLAs and running production systems at scale
• Deep expertise in at least two of: AI/ML infrastructure, distributed systems, data pipelines, security, or frontend architecture
• Professional experience with GoLang, TypeScript, or Python
• Bachelor's or Master's degree, Computer Science preferred
• High autonomy and comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-paced startup environments
• Able to work on-site in San Francisco

• Regular use of AI tools to accelerate development velocity
• A visible external presence through talks, blog posts, or open-source contributions

• Hands-on Principal role: ship code daily while owning the technical roadmap for a core domain
• Join pre-Series A, when equity is most valuable
• Deep technical ownership of the hardest distributed systems and AI infrastructure problems
• Build an AI-native platform reaching dozens of enterprise applications at a dramatically lower cost profile

• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Work policy: Hybrid - on-site in San Francisco (approximately 3 days/week in office)
• Compensation: $220,000-$280,000 + equity
• Visa sponsorship: Not available (US citizens / Green Card holders only)
• Employment type: Full-time