AI Operations Engineer

Withpulley
San Francisco, CA
Hybrid

Who this role is best for

A natural match if you have experience building AI-powered tools for messy real-world processes and a background in software or ops engineering.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with 3+ years in software engineering or AI who have shipped production-ready tools or agents
    — “3+ years of experience in software engineering, ops engineering, applied AI, or a similar hands-on building role”
  • Individuals who thrive in cross-functional collaboration between engineering, product, and operations teams
    — “You'll sit on our Engineering team and work across Permit Ops, customers, and Product”
  • Those with a track record of improving messy real-world workflows with AI or automation
    — “Experience in construction tech, govtech, proptech, or another domain where the hard part is messy real-world documents and processes”

Things to consider

  • Requires in-person work in San Francisco for 4 days a week despite being a remote-friendly industry
    — “Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and willing to work in person 4 days a week”
  • Strong emphasis on real-world impact, with AI errors risking project delays and rejections
    — “Build the evals and monitoring that tell us whether an AI workflow is getting it right”

How to stand out

  • Highlight specific AI tools or automation systems you've built and deployed in production
    — “A track record of shipping AI-powered tools, agents, or automations that are still running in production”
  • Demonstrate your ability to work directly with customers and internal teams
    — “You can work directly with customers and internal teams without needing someone to translate”
  • Showcase your focus on security and data integrity in integrations
    — “No data leaks, no unsafe writes”
  • Emphasize your process-oriented mindset and ability to map real workflows
    — “You like figuring out how work actually gets done and making it faster”
  • Demonstrate ownership by describing how you've fixed issues or improved systems
    — “When something is broken, you fix it”
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Team

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • Built tools and integrations that improve customer processes
  • Developed AI workflows that enhance operational efficiency
Typical background
Experience in AI and machine learningBackground in software engineering

Skills & requirements

Required

AIMachine LearningData EngineeringIntegrationAutomationProcess ImprovementSecurity

Preferred

Permitting IntelligencePredictive Analytics

Stack & domain

AIPermitting IntelligencePermitting ExpertiseAI WorkflowsIntegrationsData SyncsProcess ImprovementSecurityMonitoringEvaluationAutomationToolingRetoolN8nZapierMCP ConnectorsCustomLlm-powered WorkflowsTelemetryAi/mlJavaScriptReactLeadershipCommunicationCollaborationProblem-solvingAttention To DetailProcess-mindedSecurity-mindedTechnicalAnalyticalConsultative SellingHealthcareRetailFinanceConstructionPermittingData CenterEV ChargingCommercial Projects

About the role

Original posting from Withpulley via Ashby

About Pulley

Pulley helps the country’s top architects, builders, and retailers speed up every project in their portfolio. With AI-powered permitting intelligence and expert guidance, we eliminate costly delays and bring predictability across the full lifecycle of commercial projects.

Today, permitting is the slowest, most uncertain part of building, spread across 19,000+ jurisdictions with different rules, timelines, and surprises. Pulley gives project teams the clarity and predictability they need to move from planning to opening without delays.

We support rollout programs for brands like J.Crew, Solidcore, and Hibbett Sports, as well as major data center buildouts, EV charging networks, and other commercial projects. Our platform dramatically reduces approval timelines, improves forecasting accuracy, and removes thousands of hours of manual work from design and construction teams.

Founded in 2021, Pulley combines deep permitting expertise with purpose-built AI from people who have created products used by millions. We’re backed by CRV, Susa Ventures, Fifth Wall, and leaders from Plaid, Segment, ServiceTitan, and Procore.

About the Role

We're hiring our founding AI Operations Engineer. You'll be a founding member of this team, building the tools, integrations, and automations that make Pulley fit seamlessly into how our strategic customers work, plus the agents and automations that take manual work off our Permit Ops team.

You'll sit on our Engineering team and work across Permit Ops, customers, and Product. You'll find the process that's slowing people down, build the thing that fixes it, and keep improving it until it works.

What You'll Do

External

  • Work with our strategic customers, alongside the account leads who own the relationship, to understand how they run their rollouts and where Pulley needs to plug in
  • Build integrations, data syncs, and AI workflows that connect Pulley to customers' systems, safely

Internal

  • Sit with our Permit Ops PMs, map how work actually gets done, and spot what's worth automating and what should stay human
  • Build fast, lightweight internal agents, tools, and automations that take manual research and admin work off their plate, alongside what's in the core product
  • Make sure teams actually adopt and trust what you ship

Across both

  • Build the evals and monitoring that tell us whether an AI workflow is getting it right
  • Turn one-off fixes into reusable tools and playbooks that work for every customer and every PM
  • Bring what you learn back to Product and Engineering so the platform gets better every week
  • Push back when a request won't actually solve the problem

Who You Are

  • High slope. You learn fast and have a track record of leveling up quickly
  • A builder mindset. You've shipped real AI tools or agents to solve complex problems
  • Process-minded. You like figuring out how work actually gets done and making it faster, whether that's for a customer or your own team
  • Solid engineering. You can build secure production systems, work with APIs and data, and debug systems you didn't build
  • A clear communicator. You can work directly with customers and internal teams without needing someone to translate

Need to Have

  • 3+ years of experience in software engineering, ops engineering, applied AI, or a similar hands-on building role
  • CS or adjacent technical degree
  • A track record of shipping AI-powered tools, agents, or automations that are still running in production (a portfolio or examples are a big plus)
  • Fluency with AI coding and agent tooling like Claude Code or Cursor as a daily practice
  • Solid engineering fundamentals: you can work with APIs and data, build reliable and secure systems, and debug things you didn't build
  • Experience working directly with customers or external stakeholders
  • Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and willing to work in person 4 days a week

Nice to Haves

  • Experience in construction tech, govtech, proptech, or another domain where the hard part is messy real-world documents and processes
  • Experience building internal tools or ops tooling (Retool, n8n, Zapier, MCP connectors, or custom)
  • Experience designing evals or otherwise making LLM-powered workflows reliable in production
  • Early-stage startup or founder experience
  • Interest in helping build and eventually lead a team

Why This Role

  • Founding role: you shape what AIOps looks like at Pulley
  • Big scope: customer integrations and internal tooling, across every product line we launch

Source: Withpulley careers (Ashby)

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