Staff Software Engineer - Customer Facing Applied AI

Addepar is a global data and AI platform that helps investment professionals turn complex financial information into actionable intelligence. The Staff Applied AI Engineer will set the technical direction for AI engineering, lead complex client engagements, design shared AI platform capabilities, and guide prototypes into reliable products used by all customers.

Responsibilities:

• Set the technical direction for AI engineering across the team: agent architecture patterns, evaluation methodology, deployment and monitoring strategies
• Design the AI platform layer, including the shared agent frameworks, tool integrations, and evaluation infrastructure the team builds on
• Work directly with clients on the most complex engagements: identifying new problem domains, designing AI capabilities for workflows that have never been automated, and ensuring production quality
• Make high-judgment calls on AI readiness: deciding what is production-worthy and what is not, balancing speed with reliability in a domain where the stakes are real
• Drive the handoff from prototype to product, working with core engineering teams to generalize client-specific capabilities for all customers
• Lead production quality for AI systems: designing observability, establishing SLOs, and building the operational practices that keep AI reliable
• Mentor and grow AI and full stack engineers, setting the technical and cultural bar for a new team
• Shape product direction by translating what you learn from client engagements into roadmap priorities

Requirements:

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Professional experience with Python (the team's primary language)
• Deep experience building and operating AI/LLM-powered systems in production: agent architectures, multi-model orchestration, evaluation at scale
• Track record of designing technical systems that other engineers build on. You think in platforms and patterns, not individual features
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, Codex, or similar)
• You've repeatedly taken products or capabilities from zero to one. You're as comfortable identifying the right problem as you are building the right system
• Experience working directly with customers or external stakeholders to scope and deliver technical work
• Strong judgment in ambiguous, high-stakes environments. You know when to move fast and when to be careful
• Ability to lead technical direction without formal authority. You influence across teams through the quality of your thinking and your work
• Excellent communication skills. Credible with clients, engineers, and executive leadership
• BS/MS in Computer Science, Mathematics, or another quantitative field, or equivalent experience
• Experience designing multi-service AI platform architectures (model serving, agent orchestration, evaluation infrastructure)
• Experience with additional backend languages (Java is valuable in our environment)
• Financial services domain knowledge (portfolios, trading, document management, regulatory workflows)
• Experience with production observability and SaaS operational excellence at scale
• Background in developer experience or internal platform work, building tools that change how engineering teams operate