Staff AI Engineer

The role

A Staff AI Engineer will lead the design and delivery of AI/ML systems. You will define AI architecture, lead model development, and solve integration problems on cross-functional teams.

What you will do

• Lead the design and implementation of complex ML/AI systems end-to-end
• Build and evolve scalable ML platforms, pipelines, and infrastructure
• Set the standard for AI-forward engineering using tools like Claude and Cursor
• Partner with product, engineering, and leadership to shape AI strategy
• Translate complex AI tradeoffs into clear narratives for stakeholders
• Lead design reviews and technical discussions
• Define AI architecture and engineering standards
• Mentor and grow junior and mid-level engineers
• Take ownership of ambiguous and high-stakes work

Required qualifications

• 7+ years professional software engineering experience
• 4+ years focused on AI/ML systems in production
• Deep hands-on experience with generative AI development
• Expert software engineering background (Python or similar)
• Deep expertise with cloud platforms, including AWS services and AWS GenAI offerings
• Proven track record designing and shipping complex agentic systems in production environments
• Mastery of AI frameworks and orchestration tools
• Strong experience with evaluation frameworks and observability tools for LLM apps
• Deep understanding of AI safety, responsible AI principles, prompt injection defenses, and PII handling
• Extensive experience building RAG pipelines
• API design experience
• Advanced cost optimization expertise

Benefits

• 20 days of paid vacation
• 15 days of unpaid vacation
• All official public holidays off
• 5 paid sick days without a doctor's certificate
• Medical insurance
• Military draft deferment (reservation) support
• Cooperation under a gig-contract

About the company

Robots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. They design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations.