Staff Product Engineer, Enterprise AI Startup

The team is hiring a frontend-leaning Staff Full-Stack Engineer to help define its technical direction and scale the systems supporting its AI-powered platform., This is a senior individual-contributor position with substantial architectural, technical and product influence. You will operate across the frontend, internal systems and full-stack product development while working closely with Data and Machine Learning engineers.

You will own complex initiatives from ambiguous problem through production, establish patterns that other engineers can build upon and help the team make sound technical decisions as the company scales.

This is not a people-management role. Your impact will come through architecture, technical leadership, mentorship, execution and cross-functional influence.

What you’ll do

• Set technical direction for critical backend services, internal systems and full-stack product capabilities.
• Lead the architecture and delivery of complex initiatives from initial design through production deployment and operation.
• Partner with Data and Machine Learning engineers to productionize AI-powered workflows.
• Evaluate and select technology stacks, frameworks and tools based on product and business requirements.
• Establish engineering standards and reusable patterns for scalability, reliability, observability, testing and maintainability.
• Identify technical risks and address architectural bottlenecks before they limit product or team growth.
• Make and communicate thoughtful tradeoffs between delivery speed, system quality, scalability and business priorities.
• Contribute hands-on across Python backend systems and TypeScript-based product development.
• Mentor engineers through technical guidance, design reviews, code reviews and collaborative problem-solving.
• Work with product and company leadership to translate ambiguous business needs into clear technical strategies.
• Improve the team’s ability to develop, deploy and iterate on production systems quickly and safely.

Product Engineering, Startup, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Startup, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Regulations, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Product Engineering, Modeling Languages, Product/Service Launch, * Eight or more years of professional software engineering experience, including significant experience designing and operating production systems.

• Previous experience operating at the Staff, Lead, Principal, Founding Engineer or equivalent level.
• A record of leading technically complex, cross-functional initiatives without relying on formal management authority.
• Deep expertise in Python and strong proficiency with TypeScript.
• Experience building and launching full-stack products in startup or fast-growth environments.
• Strong knowledge of relational databases, distributed systems and microservice architectures.
• Experience deploying, operating and scaling applications using AWS and Docker.
• Demonstrated ability to own systems from architecture and implementation through deployment, monitoring and continued operation.
• Strong product judgment and comfort beginning with an ambiguous problem rather than a complete specification.
• Experience influencing architectural decisions and raising engineering standards across a team.
• The ability to explain complex technical decisions clearly to engineering, product and business stakeholders.
• A collaborative, pragmatic and low-ego leadership style.
• A bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, engineering or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice to have

• Experience with NoSQL or vector databases.
• Experience building products that incorporate generative AI or large language models.
• Familiarity with AI-powered workflows, retrieval systems or agentic applications.
• Experience working closely with Data and Machine Learning teams.
• Experience as an early or founding engineer at a startup.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers and helping establish an engineering culture.
• Exposure to data-intensive, enterprise or regulated-industry products.

Location and work authorization

The team is based in New York City and works primarily in person. Candidates outside the area should be willing to relocate to NYC, although occasional remote flexibility is available.

Candidates must already be authorized to work in the United States. Visa sponsorship and transfers are not currently available.