About the company
Our client is a fast-growing software company.
The role
Raydar is recruiting for this role on behalf of our client. Own the applied AI layer of a software platform, covering data retrieval, structured extraction, quality measurement and production monitoring. You will build dependable AI services on top of hosted language models and help set the standards for testing them and keeping them safe in live use.
What you'll do
- Build and run production AI services and pipelines that convert unstructured inputs into structured results.
- Design retrieval and context-assembly approaches for language model features.
- Select among model providers and manage latency, cost, retries and failure handling.
- Create evaluation datasets, regression tests, launch gates and fallback paths to keep output quality high.
- Investigate problems stemming from inputs or model behavior, and add guardrails that reduce errors and enforce constraints.
- Develop multi-step, tool-using workflows and monitor them in production.
- Turn loosely defined product goals into experiments, measurable results and shipped improvements.
- Talk with users directly, collect their feedback and refine features accordingly.
Requirements
What we're looking for
- 4 to 6+ years building production software, machine learning systems or applied AI systems.
- Strong Python skills, including building and maintaining services and using async patterns.
- A track record of shipping AI/ML systems to production with sustained ownership, beyond internal tooling.
- Hands-on experience creating evaluation suites, benchmarks or automated testing and delivery workflows for machine learning products.
- Proven experience with retrieval-augmented generation, retrieval or agent orchestration.
- Experience turning hosted language model APIs into product behavior through structured outputs, tool use or multi-step workflows.
- Ability to think about a whole system from incoming data through to what the user sees.
- Experience iterating on features from direct user feedback, with clear written and verbal communication.
- Experience leading larger projects, judged by scope, complexity and business importance.
- A pragmatic approach to refactoring versus shipping, build versus buy, and managing technical debt.
- A Bachelor's degree or higher in a technical discipline such as computer science or engineering.
- An understanding of what being a founding engineer involves.
- Ability to work on-site five days a week.
Bonus points
- Experience with embeddings, hybrid search, chunking and reranking.
- Experience making agentic workflows dependable when steps or tools fail.
- Experience pulling trustworthy structured information out of long or messy documents.
- Experience working with varied input formats, such as images, audio or video content.
- Familiarity with a typed language such as Go, C++, Java, Scala or C.
- Exposure to business process analysis or workflow software.
- Regular use of AI-assisted coding tools.
Benefits
Compensation and benefits
- Base salary: USD 180,000 to 275,000 per year
- Equity
- Benefits package
Location and work model
- San Francisco, CA, United States
- On-site, 5 days per week in office
- Full-time
Skills Required
- 4 to 6+ years building production software, machine learning systems, or applied AI systems
- Strong Python skills, including building and maintaining services and using asynchronous patterns
- Track record of shipping AI/ML systems to production with sustained ownership
- Experience creating evaluation suites, benchmarks, automated testing, and delivery workflows for machine learning products
- Experience with retrieval-augmented generation, retrieval, or agent orchestration
- Experience using hosted language model APIs for structured outputs, tool use, or multi-step workflows
- Ability to understand systems from incoming data through user-facing results
- Experience iterating on features using direct user feedback
- Experience leading larger projects based on scope, complexity, and business importance
- Bachelor's degree or higher in computer science, engineering, or a related technical discipline
- Understanding of founding engineer responsibilities
- Ability to work on-site five days per week
- Experience with embeddings, hybrid search, chunking, and reranking
- Experience making agentic workflows dependable when steps or tools fail
- Experience extracting trustworthy structured information from long or messy documents
- Experience with varied input formats, including images, audio, or video
- Familiarity with a typed language such as Go, C++, Java, Scala, or C
- Exposure to business process analysis or workflow software
- Regular use of AI-assisted coding tools
What We Do
Raydar is a talent acquisition and business consulting firm that connects world-class and emerging talent with growing organizations. It supports companies through team development, strategic hiring, and customized growth solutions, helping clients recruit roles such as engineers, product managers, executives, legal counsel, and quantitative traders. Raydar focuses on understanding each organization’s needs, culture, and long-term goals to build high-impact teams.
