Staff Software Engineer, Applied AI
At a glance
Senior AI Engineering role at Lightfield. San Francisco · full-time · $220,000–$300,000 base.
aimlroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Turn customer problems into LLM-powered features, working with product leaders to define scope and build the solution
- Build domain-focused AI assistants, using prompts and methods such as few-shot learning and chain-of-thought
- Develop retrieval and agent systems that draw on public and proprietary data, then improve relevance, fidelity and speed through evaluation
- Create experimentation tools, including automated LLM evaluation, to support faster iteration and tailored product experiences
- Set direction for AI application practices, while recruiting and mentoring engineers
What you bring
- At least seven years of experience, with the ability to get productive quickly in a stack including TypeScript, React or another listed technology
- A computer science degree or a related qualification, backed by solid software engineering fundamentals
- Hands-on LLM exploration through work or personal projects, plus familiarity with AI and machine learning concepts such as training and evaluation
Who this fits
This suits a senior engineer who can independently move an unclear project forward, balance ambitious plans with regular user value, and explain decisions to technical and nontechnical teammates. The role is based onsite in San Francisco, with Wednesdays worked from home. You’ll also recruit and mentor teammates.
From the employer
About Lightfield
Lightfield is reimagining CRM as a world model of a business. By learning from emails, meetings, and customer conversations, we’re building a living understanding of how a company works—so AI can help teams anticipate what comes next, make better decisions, and take action.
More than 5,000 companies have used the product since its November launch. We’ve raised more than $70M from Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Maverick Ventures, and Greylock to attack the biggest software category in the world. We previously built Tome, which reached more than 25 million users, and our team brings experience from Llama, Instagram, Google, and Salesforce.
About the role
We’re looking for a driven, creative engineer who is excited about the challenge of leveraging LLMs to build exceptionally innovative product experiences.
You’ll join us at the frontier of AI product development, developing industry-leading approaches to solve important customer problems.
Engineers at Lightfield own and drive projects from inception to impact, working with teammates of all functions along the way.
You’ll also push our company’s overall product and technical vision as we learn from each project and continue to scale.
What you'll do
Collaborate with product leaders to identify customer problems, scope requirements, and implement LLM-powered solutions.
Apply LLMs as reasoning engines to build domain-specific AI assistants.
Create and enhance prompts, applying techniques like few-shot learning and chain-of-thought.
Develop and optimize end-to-end RAG pipelines and agent architectures to leverage public and proprietary data.
Improve end-to-end AI agent quality (e.g. relevance, fidelity, latency) via empirical evaluation and iteration.
Build and enhance systems and tools that enable high-velocity experimentation (e.g. LLM-powered automated evaluation) and customized product experiences.
Stay at the forefront of AI research and incorporate state-of-the-art techniques.
Shape technical direction and best practices for AI application development at Lightfield.
Help build a world-class engineering team by recruiting and mentoring teammates.
Who you are
You have 7+ years experience and the ability to ramp up quickly on a tech stack that features TypeScript, React, Next.js, Node.js, Apollo GraphQL, and Aurora PostgreSQL.
You have explored working with LLMs, either through professional projects or personal experimentation.
You have a degree in Computer Science or a related field, with a strong foundation in software engineering principles.
You are familiar with AI and ML concepts (e.g. training, evaluation techniques).
You are passionate about keeping up with and exploring the latest advancements in LLMs and LLMOps (including open source solutions).
You are excited to develop new best practices in an emerging domain.
You can drive a project with an ambiguous problem independently.
You enjoy strategically balancing ambitious vision with frequent delivery of user value.
You are able to clearly communicate your reasoning and decisions to your teammates (technical and nontechnical) at an appropriate altitude of detail.
You are energized by building software experiences customers will use directly and depend on to do their jobs successfully.
Benefits & Perks
Competitive salary
Meaningful early equity
Health insurance (medical, dental, vision)
3 weeks of PTO
11 paid company holidays + we enjoy a winter holiday break
3 months of paid family leave
Wednesdays work from home
Regular team dinners, events, offsites, and retreats
401k plan
Other perks include: commuter and lunch stipend