Staff Software Engineer, AI & App Experience (San Francisco)

About the RoleChime is looking for an Engineering Manager to lead one of the teams building Jade, our AI-powered financial assistant, within the AI & App Experience (AAX) organization. AAX is building the next generation of the Chime member experience, and Jade sits at the center of it: helping millions of members manage their spending, stay on top of subscriptions, and reach their financial goals through conversation that's natural, reliable, and trustworthy.We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer to help design, build, and ship member-facing AI capabilities. As a Staff engineer on the team, you'll set the technical direction for how we build with LLMs, architecting the agent systems, evaluation frameworks, and guardrails that let us ship an AI product reliably and safely at the scale of millions of members. You'll stay deeply hands-on: designing new agent capabilities and conversation experiences, prototyping quickly, and shipping production code, while raising the technical bar for the engineers around you. You pair strong engineering fundamentals with a product mindset, owning capabilities from problem definition through measurement and iteration.The AI landscape evolves rapidly, so does Chime. You'll need to learn quickly, adapt to shifting priorities, and proactively identify what's needed next, whether that's a new financial capability, a better way to evaluate conversations, or a system to keep quality high as we scale. If you're excited by the unique challenges of building LLM-powered products at scale, this is the role for you.The base salary offered for this role and level of experience will begin at $223,000.00 and up to $308,000.00. Full-time employees are also eligible for a bonus, competitive equity package, and benefits. The actual base salary offered may be higher, depending on your location, skills, qualifications, and experience.In this role, you can expect toSet the technical direction and architecture for how Chime builds with LLMs on Jade: the agent architectures, prompt strategies, and orchestration patterns that shape how Jade reasons and acts, and that other engineers build onDesign, build, and scale new member-facing capabilities for Jade, from prototype through production, moving fluidly between product discovery and hands-on engineeringBuild the eval frameworks, observability, and guardrail systems that let the team ship LLM-powered features with speed, safety, and confidenceDevelop and harden the backend services and internal tooling behind Jade (model routing, prompt management, agent orchestration, and evaluation pipelines), improving reliability and performance as we scaleLeverage AI and LLMs natively in your own workflow, using AI-assisted coding and rapid prototyping, and turn one-off AI workflows into reusable systems (agent loops, evals, custom tooling) that compound the whole team's outputChampion AI-native development practices across the team: set the quality gates that keep AI-assisted output production-ready, encode recurring failure modes into shared evals and guardrails, and push the team to work at the frontier of what AI tooling makes possibleExercise judgment about where and how AI is applied, deciding which problems get an AI-generated first pass and which need human judgment, and calibrating model autonomy to the stakes and reversibility of each decisionDrive experimentation and rapid iteration: design A/B tests, analyze results, and make data-informed decisions about what to scale, pivot, or killPartner cross-functionally with product, design, data science, and risk to understand member pain points and deliver secure, scalable solutionsContribute to technical design and uphold high standards across the codebase through code reviews and mentorship, multiplying the impact of the engineers around youParticipate in on-call rotation; being on call may include responding to incidents outside of regular working hours when necessaryTo thrive in this role, you have8+ years of backend or full-stack software development experience in production environmentsDeep expertise in system design, distributed systems, and architectural patterns for high-scale systemsProficiency with Python or comparable frameworks, with the breadth to make sound decisions across the stackAI-native fluency: you actively build with LLMs, AI code assistants, and generative AI tooling as a daily part of your workflow, not as a side projectHands-on experience building or shipping LLM-powered product features (agents, conversation experiences, evals, prompt strategies, or guardrails) at production scaleA track record of turning AI into durable leverage: reusing and improving workflows, encoding recurring fixes into evals, rules, and tooling instead of solving the same problem twice, and acting as the first and most critical reviewer of AI-generated outputSound judgment about where and how to apply AI, calibrating verification effort and model autonomy to the stakes, reversibility, and cost of each taskExperience with transactional databases (e.g., Postgres) and caching systems (e.g., Redis), and a strong focus on writing maintainable, well-tested codeDemonstrated technical leadership across teams: setting direction, driving architectural decisions, and aligning cross-functional stakeholders without relying on positional authorityA track record of mentoring engineers and raising the technical barA product mindset with a bias toward action: you ship v1 fast, learn from real usage, and iterate, letting data settle debatesBonus: experience with agent development, fintech, or startup environments#LI-AA1 #LI-OnsiteA little about usAt Chime, we believe that everyone can achieve financial progress. We created Chime—a financial technology company, not a bank*—on the premise that core banking services should be helpful, easy, and free. Through our user-friendly tools and intuitive platforms, we empower our members to take control of their finances and work towards their goals. Whether it's starting a savings account, purchasing a first car or home, launching a business, or pursuing higher education, we're proud to have helped millions unlock their financial potential.We're a team of problem solvers, dreamers, and builders with one shared obsession: our members. From day one, Chimers have worked tirelessly to out-hustle and out-execute competitors to bring our mission to life. Their grit and determination inspire us to work harder every day to deliver the very best experience possible. We each bring an owner's mindset to our work, refusing to be outdone and holding ourselves accountable to meet and exceed the highest bars for our teams, our company, and our members.We believe in being bold, dreaming big, and taking risks, while also working together, embracing our diverse perspectives, and giving each other honest feedback. Our culture remains deeply entrepreneurial, encouraging every Chimer to see themselves as stewards of our mission to help everyday Americans unlock their financial progress. We know that to achieve our mission, we must earn and keep people's trust—so we hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity in everything we do. These aren't just words on a wall—our values are embedded in every aspect of our business, serving as a north star that guides us as we work to help millions achieve their financial potential.Because if we don't—who will?*Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by The Bancorp Bank, N.A. or Stride Bank, N.A., Members FDIC.What we offer for our full-time, regular employeesð Our in-office work policy is designed to keep you connected - with four days a week in the office and Fridays from home for those near one of our offices, plus team and company-wide events depending on location. Whether you’re coming in regularly or are part of our fully remote program, you’ll stay engaged with your work and teammates.ð» In-office perks including backup child, elder, and/or pet care, plus a subsidized commuter benefit to support your regular commuteð Competitive salary based on experience 401k match plus great medical, dental, vision, life, and disability benefitsð Generous vacation policy and company-wide Chime Days, bonus company-wide paid days offð« 1% of your time off to support local community organizations of your choiceð Annual wellness stipend to use towards eligible wellness related expensesð¶ Up to 24 weeks of paid parental leave for birthing parents and 12 weeks of paid parental leave for non-birthing parentsðª Access to Maven, a family planning tool, with $15k lifetime reimbursement for egg freezing, fertility treatments, adoption, and more.ð In-person and virtual events to connect with your fellow Chimers—think cooking classes, guided meditations, music festivals, mixology classes, paint nights, etc., and delicious snack boxes, too!ð A challenging and fulfilling opportunity to join one of the most experienced teams in FinTech and help millions unlock financial progressWe know that great work can’t be done without a diverse team and inclusive environment. That’s why we specifically look for individuals of varying strengths, skills, backgrounds, and ideas to join our team. We believe this gives us a competitive advantage to better serve our members and helps us all grow as Chimers and individuals.Chime is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital or family status, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis under provincial, federal, state, and local laws, regulations, or ordinances. We will also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of state and local laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chan