About PubNub
PubNub powers the world’s most engaging real-time experiences—chat, live updates, and interactive applications—for over 2,000 companies including Verizon, Autodesk, Zillow, and Dropbox. Our global data network processes trillions of messages each month with sub-100 ms latency across 15+ data centers. Backed by $130M in funding, we’re shaping the future of how the world connects.
We’re now building something new: an intelligence layer that lets developers weave large language models (LLMs) and deep-learning pipelines directly into high-speed streams. We believe AI should be as real-time as the data it reasons about, and we’re hiring founding engineers to make that vision real.
The Role
As a Senior AI Engineer, you’ll architect and build cloud-native services that combine PubNub’s real-time streams with state-of-the-art AI. From retrieval-augmented generation and low-latency inference to developer tooling, you’ll create the foundation of PubNub’s intelligence platform. This is a greenfield opportunity to define architecture, drive scale, and deliver AI capabilities that power products across industries.
What You’ll Do
- Architect and build services that fuse real-time data streams with NLP, moderation, recommendation, and custom models
- Own the full ML lifecycle: pipelines, fine-tuning, evaluation, packaging, inference, and observability
- Develop internal tooling (SDKs, CLI, CI/CD hooks) so teams can add AI with a single API call
- Optimize for sub-100 ms inference at global scale using CUDA, TensorRT, vLLM, Rust, and caching strategies
- Partner with product and solution architects to deliver reusable AI capabilities: content safety, sentiment, personalization, anomaly detection, and more
- Champion responsible AI practices: robust evaluation, guardrails, governance, and transparent feedback loops
What We’re Looking For
Required
- 5+ years building production systems in Python, TypeScript, or Rust (ideally more than one)
- 1+ year delivering AI/LLM features to external users
- Experience scaling services beyond 100k req/s or equivalent event volumes
- Deep knowledge of ML tooling (PyTorch/TensorFlow, transformers, vector search, distributed training, experiment tracking)
- Strong containerization/orchestration skills (Docker, Kubernetes)
- Comfortable using AI coding copilots as part of your workflow
- Excellent written and verbal English communication
Preferred
- Experience with streaming platforms (Kafka, Kinesis, Redpanda)
- Hands-on work with cloud AI services (AWS Bedrock, GCP Vertex, Azure OpenAI)
- Knowledge of low-level performance tuning (CUDA kernels, SIMD, memory profiling)
Why Join PubNub
- Build a greenfield intelligence platform at internet scale
- Ship features that land directly in customer-facing products across healthcare, fintech, gaming, and streaming
- Competitive Compensation in the range of USD149000-200000
- Remote-friendly culture with Open PTO
- Equity in a profitable, fast-growing infrastructure company
- A team that values craftsmanship over ego
If you’re excited to make AI real-time, we’d love to hear from you.
Note: Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship
Top Skills
What We Do
PubNub powers apps that bring people together in real-time for remote work, play, learning, and health. Thousands of companies use PubNub's developer platform and APIs as the foundation for their online chat, virtual events, geolocation, remote control, and real-time updates, at a massive global scale. Since 2010, PubNub has invested in the tools and global infrastructure required to serve customers like Adobe, DocuSign, and RingCentral, delivering SOC 2 Type 2 security and reliability while meeting regulatory needs like HIPAA and GDPR. PubNub has raised over $130M from notable investors like Raine Group, Sapphire, Scale, Relay, Cisco, Bosch, Ericsson, and HPE.
