Staff Software Engineer, AI Tooling

Location: Long Beach, California, United States; onsite. The role requires access to U.S. export-controlled information, so the hire must be a U.S. person or otherwise eligible for deemed export licensing.

Salary: $188,600–$267,700 USD per year for the Staff Software Engineer level.

Company

hirify.global develops next-generation commercial space stations and systems supporting human presence, microgravity research, manufacturing, and the emerging space economy.

What you will do

• Define the technical direction and long-term roadmap for internal AI platforms and tooling.
• Architect and lead full-stack AI applications serving use cases across the company.
• Build production integrations connecting AI models with internal tools, data sources, and workflows.
• Design pipelines for AI response enforcement, content safety, and output formatting.
• Evaluate emerging AI frameworks, models, and development patterns.
• Collaborate with infrastructure, security, and business stakeholders while mentoring engineers and improving system reliability, observability, and scalability.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, mathematics, engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of software development or relevant industry experience.
• Experience leading technical initiatives from concept through production deployment and maintaining applications at scale.
• Strong full-stack proficiency across frontend and backend systems.
• Deep understanding of AI/ML concepts, large language model architectures, prompt engineering, and modern AI tooling patterns.
• Must meet U.S. export-control requirements through U.S. person status or deemed export licensing eligibility.

Nice to have

• Production experience with Python and TypeScript, Svelte or SvelteKit, and OpenWebUI or similar AI interface platforms.
• Experience building or integrating MCP servers and gateways, LLM APIs, and AI pipelines.
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, RAG patterns, vector databases, and AI/ML platforms at scale.
• Previous experience as a tech lead or in a similar engineering leadership role.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time exempt employment with company equity.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid parental leave, disability and life insurance, and access to a 401(k) plan.
• Paid time off, including up to 20+ vacation days for exempt staff, with annual vacation cash-out options.
• Up to 10% travel and occasional evening or weekend work to support critical mission milestones.
• Onsite food benefits including snacks, coffee, drinks, dinner, and subsidized lunch, plus ClassPass and mental healthcare support.