Sr. Staff AI Engineer

Role Description

At Rula, this role owns the AI foundation that determines how, and how well, AI shows up across mental healthcare. The focus isn’t on prototypes or isolated features, but on building durable, production-grade generative AI systems that directly power patient engagement, provider workflows, and clinical operations at scale.

• Operate where architecture, applied research, and real-world constraints meet.
• Design core AI platforms, set technical standards for safety, reliability, and performance.
• Make principal decisions about how advanced AI is introduced into a regulated, high-stakes care environment.
• Define system architecture, unblock complex engineering problems, and act as a technical multiplier for other engineers.
• Create foundations that others can build on confidently and that hold up under scale, scrutiny, and real patient impact.
• Shape how AI responsibly becomes part of everyday mental healthcare.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience.
• 7+ years of experience with Public Cloud (AWS, GCP, etc.).
• 5+ years designing and scaling distributed systems.
• 5+ years of deep experience in Python and at least one backend language (preferably JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, or Go).
• 2+ years of proven track record building AI-powered products at scale.
• Hands-on experience with foundation models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, Gemini, etc.).
• 2+ years of strong experience in LLM integration patterns or AI orchestration frameworks.
• 3+ years in working with MLOps, data pipelines, evaluation, and observability systems for continuous model improvement.

Requirements

• Experience architecting secure and compliant AI solutions in regulated environments (HIPAA, GDPR, etc.).
• Familiarity with human-in-the-loop systems and clinical decision support frameworks.
• Experience designing evaluation pipelines for human alignment, factual accuracy, or model interpretability.
• Contributions to open-source AI frameworks or applied research in NLP, healthcare AI, or GenAI safety.
• Experience contributing to early-stage team growth (0 → 1).
• Experience leading or mentoring engineering teams in AI, ML platform, or applied research domains.

Benefits

• 100% remote work environment.
• Working hours to support a healthy work-life balance.
• Attractive pay and benefits with full transparency of pay ranges.
• Comprehensive health benefits: Medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and FSA/HSA.
• 401(k) plan access.
• Generous time-off policies, including 2 company-wide shutdown weeks each year for self-care.
• Paid parental leave for all parents.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental and physical health support.
• New hire home office stipend.
• Quarterly department stipend for team-building activities.
• Wellness events and lunch & learns.
• Community and employee resource groups to foster a sense of belonging.

Company Description

We believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion are fundamental to our mission of making mental healthcare work for everyone. We are dedicated to having a culture of inclusion that will support our employees in feeling safe, seen, heard, and valued.