Staff Software Engineer, AI

Stord is a rapidly growing consumer‑experience company that powers seamless checkout through delivery for top brands. We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to lead the AI Platform team as the technical pillar, owning architecture, driving strategy, and raising the technical standards for the team. What You’ll Do Own the technical vision and architecture Make decisive design choices; communicate the "why" to stakeholders at all levels. Drive technical strategy in partnership with the Sr Engineering Manager and Sr Product Manager Translate product goals into sound engineering plans. Evaluate build‑vs‑buy decisions, new tools, and architectural patterns Use a pragmatic, production‑first mindset. Establish and enforce technical quality standards Lead design reviews, code reviews, and architectural guidance. Design and build core components of the AI platform Develop agent orchestration, tool systems, prompt management, and integration APIs. Build robust, scope‑aware tool systems Expose platform capabilities (orders, inventory, knowledge base) safely to AI agents. Design fault‑tolerant integrations Connect with downstream services such as Elixir/Phoenix APIs and ensure graceful degradation. Integrate ML model outputs via API layers Adapt to evolving team needs without requiring deep data‑science expertise. Serve as a technical mentor and multiplier Guide senior and mid‑level engineers, cultivate trust, and foster autonomous decision‑making. Model and teach directed agentic development practices Show how to use AI coding tools while maintaining a strong independent technical POV. Create reusable abstractions and clear documentation Accelerate the rest of the team through developer tooling and abstractions. Identify technical risks and opportunities proactively Do not wait to be assigned a ticket. Collaborate cross‑functionally Partner with Product Management, Data Scientists, ML Engineers, and other product engineering teams to shape roadmaps, feasibility, trade‑offs, and adoption of AI capabilities. What You’ll Need Required Technical Skills TypeScript (3+ years) Write idiomatic, well‑structured TypeScript; own large codebases. Distributed Systems & Edge Computing Design stateful systems at the edge; experience Cloudflare Workers, Durable Objects, or similar. AI/LLM Application Development Ship agentic or LLM‑powered features; prompt engineering, tool/function‑calling, context management. Data Streaming Platforms Integrate with event streaming (Redpanda preferred, Kafka acceptable); knowledge of Redpanda Connect or Kafka Connect. API Design & Integration Design and consume RESTful APIs, OpenAPI specs, event‑driven architectures. Database & Persistence Strong SQL fundamentals; experience with D1, SQLite, PostgreSQL, and Drizzle ORM. Cloud Platforms Hands‑on cloud experience with Cloudflare, GCP, or AWS; serverless and edge deployment. Observability Instrument systems with OpenTelemetry, Datadog, or similar; debug distributed systems. Required Leadership Skills Technical Authority Form well‑reasoned opinions based on experience. Force Multiplier Mindset Measure impact by team output, not personal ticket velocity. Accountability & Presence Show up for design reviews, releases, architecture discussions. Communication & Influence Explain decisions to PMs, executives, and junior engineers; build consensus through clarity. Directed AI‑Assisted Development Use and teach AI coding tools while maintaining quality; establish practices that outperform unguided output. Nice to Have Elixir/Phoenix experience Deep familiarity with the Cloudflare developer platform Experience with Anthropic Claude or similar LLM SDKs Knowledge of logistics, e‑commerce, or supply chain domains Open‑source contributions in TypeScript or AI projects WebSocket‑based real‑time systems experience Scope‑based authorization and multi‑tenant systems familiarity About the Team The AI Platform team is a small, high‑impact group of software engineers, data scientists, and data engineers building AI capabilities that span Stord’s product suite. You will report to the Sr Engineering Manager and work in a high‑autonomy, high‑accountability environment where strong technical ownership is expected. Equal Opportunity Employment We are an equal‑opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Stord participates in E‑verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. #J-18808-Ljbffr