Staff Software Engineer, AI Foundations

Summary We have an opening to hire a Staff Software Engineer - AI SDK . Temporal provides durable execution, the systems foundation used for reliable AI at leaders such as OpenAI, Lovable, Replit, and many others. As a member of the AI SDK team, you will be creating building blocks to support the expanding ecosystem of AI applications. Under the hood, non-trivial AI applications quickly become distributed systems. Fault tolerance and other challenges quickly become evident in tasks requiring reasoning, tool calls, memory management, human‑in‑the‑loop interactivity, and ambient or background processing. Temporal removes the complexity otherwise inherent in such applications, allowing simple code that works as intended every time. The AI SDK team is pushing to keep Temporal at the forefront of AI applications. Because the landscape is constantly changing, we engage heavily in prototyping to ensure that the abstractions we develop meet the needs of emerging applications. We also ensure that Temporal integrates well with leading AI frameworks and libraries. What You Will Do Work as a Software Engineer. Design and implement Temporal AI SDK features supporting a broad variety of frameworks and libraries. Develop a deep understanding of AI application development techniques, including emerging approaches and architectures. Work with multiple programming languages, primarily Python and TypeScript. Make extensive use of AI coding tools, especially to ensure quality across a large number of integrations. Take end‑to‑end ownership of new features, working with other teams to deliver exceptional reliability and a great developer experience. Serve as a domain expert on AI design patterns, collaborating with field staff to provide best‑practices and canonical examples. Work directly with our developer community to debug issues that need expert attention, and get feedback on Temporal SDK features and APIs. Write public technical documentation describing Temporal concepts and APIs. Go the extra mile to support a customer in need, on the rare occasion that AI SDK engineering expertise is needed. Travel to meet your coworkers for a week once or twice a year. Attend the occasional developer conference to talk about how great Temporal is (optional). What You Won’t Do Work as a Data Scientist, Data Analyst, Devops SWE, or SRE. Work in an office (unless you want to, but you’d be by yourself). Temporal is a fully‑remote company. Commit code that’s poorly‑tested or works “most of the time”. Temporal aspires to be “Reliable as Gravity”, and we expect our code to be the same. Work behind closed doors. The SDKs are open source—that means PRs and comments are open to the public, too. Sit in meetings all day. We mostly communicate in writing, and use meetings mainly for status updates and thorny issues that need input from the whole group. Wake up to pager alerts. We’re extremely active in supporting our customers and the community, but we don’t do 24/7 on‑call. What You’ll Bring Experience and passion for harnessing generative AI, particularly for agents and coding. A deep understanding of how to use AI to increase quality, not only to increase quantity. A sense of taste in code and software development practice. Your approach should be opinionated and thoughtful, but not dogmatic. A track record of open source software contributions, including contributions to 3rd party libraries. Fluency in multiple programming languages, and an affinity for learning new ones. Deep experience with concurrent programming—you should know how to use mutexes, atomics, and other concurrency primitives safely. Experience designing APIs and writing documentation for publicly‑available libraries or modules. Strong technical communication skills—written and verbal—in English. BS or MS in Computer Science (or a closely‑related degree), or equivalent work experience writing production‑grade software. Nice to Have Familiarity with Temporal’s programming model (e.g. you’ve written an app on Temporal). Expedite building agents or other AI applications Background in machine learning, model training, data science, or machine learning systems. Experience contributing to the architecture and design of large‑scale distributed systems. Graduate degree in Computer Science. Compensation The estimated pay range for this role is $224,000 - $302,400 Additionally, this role is eligible to participate in Temporal's equity plan. U.S. Benefits Unlimited PTO, 12 Holidays + 2 Floating Holidays 100% Premiums Coverage for Medical, Dental, and Vision AD&D, LT & ST Disability, and Life Insurance (Standard & Supplemental Available) Empower 401K Plan Additional Perks for Learning & Development, Lifestyle Spending, In‑Home Office Setup, Professional Memberships, WFH Meals, Internet Stipend and more! International Benefits Paid Time Off (PTO) and Benefits outside the United States vary by country, and are issued in partnership with Remote.com. Additionally, Temporal offers perks to all international employees for learning & career development, a lifestyle spending account, in‑home office setup (in addition to company‑issued hardware), professional memberships, work‑from‑home meals, and access to the Calm app for mental wellness. Travel Temporal is a globally distributed, collaborative team that values opportunities for in‑person connection. Occasional travel may be required for company events, team offsites, and other meaningful moments that bring us together. Additional Perks $3,600 / Year Work from Home Meals $1,800 / Year Professional Enrichment (Career Development & Professional Memberships) $1,200 / Year Lifestyle Spending Account $1,000 / Year In‑Home Office Setup (In addition to Temporal issued equipment - laptop, monitor, keyboard, mouse, trackpad, and extension power cable at no cost to you) $74 / Month Reimbursement for Internet Calm App Subscription for Mental Health & Wellness Temporal Technologies is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Temporal Technologies does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non‑disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. We embrace and celebrate differences and diversity. Temporal is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. If you need to request a reasonable accommodation, please let your Recruiter know so we can assist. #J-18808-Ljbffr