As the Staff Lead for AI Developer Experience (AI-Ex), you will own the technical strategy and vision for our next-generation internal developer platform. You will architect and lead the creation of a "Demo to Prod" toolchain that empowers engineers to move from prototype to production-ready Pull Request in minutes. This is a high-leverage role focused on delivering a categorical shift in engineering output—reimagining the interface between human intent and production systems, and setting the stage for a future where Product and Design partners contribute code rather than static specifications.
What You'll Do
- Own the multi-year technical roadmap for the AI-Ex toolchain. Define the "What" and "How" of our AI-native developer environment, from IDE integrations to automated CI/CD pipelines.
- Build the "Demo to Prod" pipeline. Lead the effort to bridge the gap between experimental snippets and hardened features. You will establish the patterns, reusable libraries, and systemic guardrails that ensure AI-assisted code meets our highest production standards.
- Lead the strategic "stretch goal" of democratizing the codebase. Architect the automated reviews, visual regression tests, and intent-validation systems that allow non-engineers to contribute high-quality code.
- Establish the organizational standards for AI-generated code. You will lead systemic experimentation—benchmarking models and tools against clear engineering metrics to ensure our capabilities compound over time.
- Work cross-functionally with AI Ops, Security, and Release Engineering. Ensure the AI-Ex vision is integrated into the company's core infrastructure. You will act as a primary consultant for leadership on the "sea changes" in AI developer capabilities.
This is a founding Staff IC role with immense organizational leverage. Your first 6 months will focus on unblocking our most expensive engineering resources by proving out high-impact productivity toolchains. As the platform matures, you will lead the cultural and technical expansion into "Multi-Role Development," fundamentally changing how our company builds software.
What We're Looking For
- AI systems expertise. You have a deep understanding of how emerging reasoning-dense models, agent skills, and agentic IDEs are reshaping how code is authored, tested, and reviewed. You have hands-on experience with LLM APIs, prompt engineering, agentic workflows, agent SDKs, and runtime/memory management for agentic systems. You don't just follow trends; you design workflows that put these capabilities to work in real engineering environments.
- Developer platform leadership experience. You have a proven track record as a Staff or Principal Engineer building the "connective tissue" of large-scale development environments—internal tools, IDE extensions, or CI/CD platforms that scale engineering impact.
- Systems thinking mindset. You treat LLMs as probabilistic components within a deterministic system. You are obsessed with observability, benchmarking, and building reproducible workflows that move beyond "prompt engineering" into "systems engineering."
- Proven ability to lead organizational change. You are a leader who thrives on changing technical cultures. You understand the "political" and technical risks of moving from specifications to code contributions and have the experience to navigate those challenges through superior architecture.
- Developer platform engineering expertise. You have experience across the stack—modern IDE frameworks, testing infrastructure, CI/CD systems (GitHub workflows, automation, CI/CD pipelines), automated review mechanisms, infrastructure and observability tooling, and containerization. Strong scripting and automation skills (Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, Java, or similar), with hands-on experience building developer tools for both backend and frontend environments.
The posted pay range represents the anticipated low and high end of the compensation for this position and is subject to change based on business need. To determine a successful candidate’s starting pay, we carefully consider a variety of factors, including primary work location, an evaluation of the candidate’s skills and experience, market demands, and internal parity.
For roles with on-target-earnings (OTE), the pay range includes both base salary and target incentive compensation. Target incentive compensation for some roles may include a ramping draw period. Compensation is higher for those who exceed targets. Candidates may receive more information from the recruiter.
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What We Do
Navan (Nasdaq: NAVN) is the leading all-in-one business travel, payments, and expense management platform that makes travel easy for frequent travelers. From finding flights and hotels to automating expense reconciliation, with 24/7 support along the way, Navan delivers an intuitive experience travelers love and finance teams rely on. See how Navan customers benefit and learn more at navan.com.
Why Work With Us
At Navan, we’re never satisfied with the status quo, and we know breakthrough ideas come from diverse perspectives. We are committed to cultivating a workplace that reflects the diversity of the customers we serve while fostering leadership and innovation.
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Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
In-person connections is the foundation of Navan, the connections forged through face-to-face interactions improve company culture and what we can achieve together. We operate on a hybrid working model, which we define as four days a week in-office.
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