Staff AI Engineer

David Joseph & Company is building an AI operating system for a CFO office, with the platform layer acting as the foundation for agent frameworks and the systems that keep them reliable in production. This Staff AI Engineer role focuses on owning those engineering-wide foundations, from orchestration and verification to observability and data infrastructure, enabling multiple pods to move faster on shared capabilities.

Role focus

• Own the platform layer every engineering pod builds on, spanning agent frameworks, context systems, orchestration, verification, observability, and data infrastructure.
• Actively identify bottlenecks that slow the company down, rather than waiting for specs from a PM or relying on an architecture committee.

Requirements

• 2+ years of agentic-AI work with a research-oriented background.
• 8+ years of software engineering, with distributed-systems or strong platform depth.
• Platform-layer experience that multiplied output across engineering teams.
• Early-stage startup experience (pre-seed to Series B).
• On-site in NYC on startup hours.

Technologies and tools

• Python (primary)
• Agent frameworks
• Distributed systems
• Workflow and transactional engines
• Data infrastructure
• Claude and Cursor (fluent AI-coding-agent use valued)

Nice to have

• Deep agentic-AI experience with architectural ownership.
• A research-oriented ML or NLP background applied to production systems.
• Prior Staff or Principal IC experience at a high-growth startup.
• Domain background in finance, ERP, audit, or compliance.

Location, work policy, and compensation

• Location: New York City, NY (onsite)
• Work policy: On-site, 6 days/week (startup hours)
• Compensation: $200,000–$250,000 per year + 0.1%–0.35% equity
• Visa sponsorship: Not available
• Employment type: Full-time

Minimum experience: 2 years.