AI Engineer | Rust | Python | TypeScript | Agentic Dev Tools | Must Have Startup Exp

Optimal
San Francisco, US
Hybrid

Job Description

AI Engineer | Rust | Python | TypeScript | Agentic Dev Tools | Must Have Startup Experience

Location: San Francisco, CA / New York, NY (Hybrid preferred; remote for exceptional US-based candidates)

Package: $280,000 – $400,000 + competitive equity

Eligibility: Open to candidates with existing work authorisation - US Residents Only

Tech Stack: Rust | Python | TypeScript | AWS | Terraform | Sentry | Claude Code | Cursor | GitHub Copilot

🚨 Please only apply if you have commercial experience with all of the following 🚨

  • Production-grade backend engineering in Python, Rust, and/or TypeScript
  • Daily use of agentic coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, or equivalent) as your primary dev workflow
  • Experience building AI development infrastructure beyond personal use — harnesses, agent skills, eval frameworks, automation scripts adopted by a team
  • 5+ years shipping production systems
  • Startup / scale-up experience
  • Strong engineering fundamentals — architecture judgement, complex codebases, quality discipline under velocity

🚀 Join an investor-backed, high-growth software company building infrastructure that serious engineering teams depend on. This is not a role where AI is bolted on — it's embedded in how the team ships, every day. You'll own features end-to-end, build agentic development infrastructure for the whole organisation, and help define what high-velocity, high-quality engineering looks like when agents are the default.

The talent bar is exceptionally high. The problems are genuinely hard. The opportunity is significant.

Required Background

  • 5+ years of professional software engineering, building and shipping production systems
  • Production experience with Rust, Python, and/or TypeScript — strong in at least one, fluent across the stack
  • Daily use of agentic coding tools as a primary development workflow — not surface-level Copilot use
  • Proven delivery of AI dev infrastructure a team actually adopted
  • Strong engineering fundamentals: architecture judgement, ability to reason across complex codebases, quality discipline when code generation is fast and cheap
  • Clear communicator who can document workflows in ways engineers genuinely use

ℹ️ Very Important Notes

  • Core product engineering role — not ML research, not data science, not frontend-heavy profiles
  • Must be genuinely AI-native: you ship faster because of how you use agents
  • Startup mindset is non-negotiable — high autonomy, fast iteration, no hand-holding
  • Tech lead experience is a meaningful bonus, but engineering depth is the core requirement

Must-Haves

  • Rust, Python, and/or TypeScript across production backend systems
  • Agentic tooling (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent) used daily — with a real point of view on how it should work inside a professional engineering team
  • Experience building team-facing AI infrastructure: harnesses, context engineering, evaluation frameworks, automated feedback loops
  • Ability to ship at high velocity without sacrificing quality
  • Background in developer tooling, CLI engineering, or infrastructure is a strong signal

Bonus Experience

  • Familiarity with reproducible build systems or package management tooling
  • Tech lead experience — owning delivery and leading a team through execution
  • Open-source contributions to AI tooling, agent frameworks, or developer infrastructure
  • Experience at a mix of large structured companies and fast-moving startups
  • Public work, writing, or content that demonstrates genuine passion for agentic development

Hands-On Experience With

  • Rust, Python, TypeScript — across CLI tools, backend services, and infrastructure
  • Agentic coding tools as a default engineering workflow
  • AI development infrastructure: harnesses, rules files, evaluation frameworks, automated feedback loops
  • AWS, Terraform, and modern cloud infrastructure
  • Code review, architectural decision-making, and production system ownership at pace

What You'll Be Doing

Product Engineering

  • Design, build, and ship platform features — owning them end-to-end from design through production
  • Write production code using agentic tools as your default workflow, focused on the most complex and ambiguous parts of the system
  • Own the quality, reliability, and architecture of what you ship

AI Infrastructure

  • Build and maintain the team's agentic development infrastructure — harnesses, context engineering, automated feedback loops, and evaluation frameworks
  • Evaluate new agentic tools and practices as the landscape evolves — run experiments, measure results, make evidence-based calls on what to adopt

Team Enablement

  • Help engineers across the team develop sophisticated, reliable AI-assisted workflows
  • Document what works, build shared practices, and codify lessons so they compound
  • Exercise judgement on when agents accelerate real work — and when they introduce risk or false confidence

What They're Looking For

  • A deeply technical engineer who is genuinely AI-native — not a dab

Skills & Requirements

Technical Skills

RustPythonTypescriptAwsTerraformSentryClaude codeCursorGithub copilotLeadershipCommunicationAiInfrastructureDevelopment

Salary

$280,000 - $400,000

year

Employment Type

FULL TIME

Level

senior

Posted

5/7/2026

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