Staff Software Engineer, AI Developer Tooling

Location: San Francisco, CA; New York, NY. The salary transparency section also references Seattle, WA.

Base salary: $252,000–$315,000 USD annually, with equity and benefits potentially included depending on eligibility and location.

Company

Scale AI develops reliable AI systems, high-quality data, and full-stack technologies that power advanced models and help enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications.

What you will do

• Define next-generation AI development tooling and frameworks using Cursor, Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Microsoft Copilot, and in-house solutions.
• Architect and implement local development, build, testing, CI, and CD systems.
• Work with stakeholders and internal customers to refine engineering requirements.
• Mentor software engineers from new graduates through experienced engineers.
• Identify and drive improvements to development practices, processes, tools, and languages.
• Present technical information and provide guidance on development processes and technologies.

Requirements

• 8+ years of full-time engineering experience after graduation, including experience with build, test, or CI/CD systems.
• Extensive experience defining and promoting best practices for AI development tools, including cost guardrails, security frameworks, and knowledge-sharing sessions.
• Extensive software development experience and deep understanding of distributed systems and public cloud platforms; AWS is preferred.
• Experience configuring, testing, and enabling MCP servers, AI agents, and related systems.
• Track record of independently owning successful engineering projects.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, including translating complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience with infrastructure, containerization, and deployment technologies such as Terraform, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Experience with modern web frameworks such as NodeJS and NextJS.
• Strong knowledge of software engineering best practices and CI/CD tooling, including CircleCI, Helm, and ArgoCD.

Nice to have

• Experience scaling products at hyper-growth startups.
• Experience with modern build systems such as Bazel, Buck, or Pants.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time employment with comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
• Retirement benefits, a learning and development stipend, and generous paid time off.
• Additional benefits may include a commuter stipend.
• Inclusive equal-opportunity workplace with reasonable accommodations available during the application and recruiting process.
• A 90-day waiting period applies before reconsidering candidates for the same role.