Join Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies to build reusable, production-ready AI tooling and developer services. In this hybrid role in Palo Alto, CA, you will help shape how agent runtimes, evaluation, and developer workflows come together in the platform, with an emphasis on reliability, observability, and cost ownership. You will lead design reviews and end-to-end delivery of AI services and tools, while embedding security, privacy, and auditability into the process from the start.
What you’ll do
- Build reusable AI tooling across agent runtimes, evaluation, skills, plugins, and agentic loops, and help guide the roadmap through the work itself.
- Design and deliver AI tooling that can work with any model, including both open-source and proprietary, so teams can evolve without rebuilding workflows.
- Apply AI across the development lifecycle, including code review, testing, and triage, partnering with engineering leaders across domains.
- Lead design reviews and build prioritized AI services and developer tools end to end, owning reliability, observability, and cost.
- Collaborate across engineering groups to identify shared patterns, reuse components, and reduce duplication.
- Develop evaluation, guardrails, and monitoring to measure quality, safety, and developer impact across open-source and proprietary models.
- Track and communicate impact in practical terms engineers value, such as cycle time, quality, and hours returned from low-value work.
- Make AI workloads fast and affordable, and provide clear build-versus-buy recommendations.
- Embed security, privacy, and auditability in every tool, working with Security, Compliance, and Audit partners.
- Partner with DevEx, IT, and domain teams to shape AI-native workflows that engineers want to use.
- Mentor engineers across levels and raise the bar through code reviews, design reviews, and pairing.
- Stay at the frontier of AI for software development, bringing approaches that are production-ready into the platform.
What you bring
- BS or MS in Computer Science (or related field), or equivalent experience.
- For Staff: 8+ years of software engineering experience delivering production systems in enterprise environments (Senior Staff: 12+ years).
- Hands-on experience building and operating AI-native developer tools, internal platforms, or CI/CD systems in production.
- Hands-on experience with language models and agents, including tool use, context management, and evaluation in production across both open-source and proprietary models.
- Deep familiarity with recent AI developments, with judgment to determine what is production-ready versus not yet.
- Experience designing abstractions that keep tooling portable across model providers and frameworks.
- Experience collaborating across teams and influencing technical decisions without formal authority.
- Experience mentoring engineers and raising quality through reviews and design reviews.
- Working knowledge of security, privacy, and auditability for AI-enabled developer tooling.
- Strong communication skills, able to work effectively with engineering leaders across domains.
Compensation and benefits
- Competitive base salary: USD 206,500 - 283,900 per year.
- Annual company performance bonus program (may be eligible).
- Equity in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), subject to board approval.
- Health coverage
- Retirement savings
- Time off
- Family planning programs
Location: Palo Alto, California. Employment type: Full time. Work style: Hybrid.
Equal opportunity
Committed to creating a diverse environment and an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to protected characteristics under applicable law. Accommodations are available for persons with disabilities via candidateaccommodations@rivian.com.
Candidate data privacy
Personal information may be collected and used to track interactions with recruiting systems, analyze and improve the application process, establish an employment relationship, comply with legal and corporate obligations, maintain records, ensure security, and prevent fraud. Data may be shared with internal personnel and service providers and may be transferred or stored internationally, including to or in the United States, Canada, and the European Union.
