Software Engineer, AI

Recruiting from Scratch is a specialized talent firm dedicated to helping companies build exceptional teams. They are seeking a Software Engineer, AI to operate at the intersection of backend engineering, data systems, and applied AI, focusing on building production-grade AI capabilities and driving AI-driven product initiatives.

Responsibilities:

• Take ownership of new AI-driven product initiatives, particularly in marketing and personalization
• Design and build backend systems that leverage LLMs and light ML to generate insights and content from large-scale customer data
• Prototype and ship AI-powered features quickly, working closely with executive leadership and a small, high-impact team
• Develop infrastructure to evaluate, experiment with, and deploy different LLMs and AI methodologies
• Contribute to building an AI agent capable of:
• Surfacing unique data-driven insights
• Identifying high-propensity or at-risk users
• Generating marketing content and campaign recommendations
• Translating analytics into clear, actionable outputs
• Help define best practices around where and how AI should (and should not) be used in production systems
• Influence the long-term product roadmap by shaping foundational AI capabilities

Requirements:

• 3–6+ years of software engineering experience building and shipping production systems
• Experience working on AI/ML-driven or data-intensive products in startup environments
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals (e.g., distributed systems, APIs, data processing)
• Hands-on experience working with LLMs and modern AI tooling in production environments
• A track record of shipping 0→1 products or features
• Comfort operating in fast-paced, high-growth environments with evolving requirements
• Clear communication skills and the ability to reason about trade-offs in AI system design
• A high degree of ownership and intellectual curiosity around emerging AI technologies
• Experience at high-velocity, venture-backed startups (Series A–D+)
• Experience building AI-powered product features beyond basic chat or simple RAG implementations
• Familiarity with experimentation frameworks, prompt engineering, model evaluation, and applied ML
• Background in computer science, engineering, mathematics, or a related technical discipline
• Experience collaborating cross-functionally with product, data, and business stakeholders
• Located in or open to occasional travel to the San Francisco Bay Area