Staff Software Engineer, AI

Staff AI Engineer

San Francisco, CA & New York, NY

Who We Are

At Pave, we're building the industry's leading compensation platform, combining the world's largest real-time compensation dataset with deep expertise in AI and machine learning. Our platform is perfecting the art and science of pay to give 8,500+ companies unparalleled confidence in every compensation decision.

Top tier companies like OpenAI, McDonald's, Instacart, Atlassian, Synopsys, Stripe, Databricks, and Waymo use Pave, transforming every pay decision into a competitive advantage. $190+ billion in total compensation spend is managed in our workflows, and 70% of Forbes AI 50 use Pave to benchmark compensation.

The future of pay is real-time & predictive, and we're making it happen right now. We've raised $160M in funding from leading investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Y Combinator, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Craft Ventures.

The Eng Team @ Pave

This role will be working on Pave's AI compensation analyst - an agentic system that sits on top of the world's largest proprietary compensation dataset and Pave's existing workflow engine. Think: autonomous agents that can reason over structured compensation data and execute multi-step workflows (market pricing, cycle planning, attrition analysis) across Pave's platform. In this role, you'll shape the technical vision and execution, working with a team of engineers and data scientists to build the product end-to-end and take it to market. This role requires deep AI expertise, strong product intuition, and a founder mentality.

What You'll Bring

• 7+ years of experience building production systems, with deep hands-on expertise in LLMs, agentic architectures, retrieval systems, and evaluation frameworks
• Strong product intuition. You identify customer problems that AI can uniquely solve and partner with Product to shape what gets built, not just how
• Proven track record leading 0→1 technical initiatives with high ambiguity, driving them from concept to production
• Pragmatic engineering judgment: you know when to move fast and when to invest in quality
• Ability to drive technical alignment across teams. You'll be defining primitives and patterns that other engineers build on, so you need to bring people along
• Founder mentality with bias toward action, ownership, and urgency; you're energized by the challenge of bringing a new AI product to market

Compensation, It's What We Do.

At Pave, we believe compensation should be as thoughtful as the people we hire. Your total rewards package includes meaningful equity, best-in-class medical, dental, and vision coverage, unlimited PTO, and region-specific benefits designed around your life — not just your role. Your level and compensation are determined by your experience and how you show up throughout the interview process. We're always happy to walk you through how we think about leveling — just ask.

Targeted cash compensation for this role: $221,000 - $299,000

Benefits @ Pave

At Pave, growth isn't a perk — it's the point. As you develop, your role expands, your responsibilities deepen, and your compensation reflects the impact you're making.

What we offer:

• Your Health, Fully Covered: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family, with a range of options designed to meet you where you are.
• Time That's Actually Yours: Flexible PTO and the freedom to work from anywhere in the world for up to a month — because life doesn't pause, and neither should you.
• Fuel for the Work: Lunch and dinner stipends plus fully stocked kitchens, so you can stay energized without thinking twice about it.
• Room to Keep Growing: A quarterly education stipend to invest in the skills and knowledge that matter most to you.
• Support When It Matters Most: Robust parental leave so you can be fully present for the moments that count.
• Getting Here, Made Easier: A commuter stipend to support the in-person collaboration that makes great work happen.

Life @ Pave

Founded in 2019 with a clear purpose and a team that has never wavered from it, Pave has grown into a global force in compensation management — giving thousands of companies the tools to take control, build confidence, and earn credibility in every pay decision they make. And we're just getting started. Headquartered in San Francisco's Financial District, with regional hubs in New York City's Flatiron District, Salt Lake City, Kraków (Poland), and the United Kingdom — wherever you're based, you'll find the same thing: people who genuinely care about the work, each other, and the customers that rely on Pave.

We run a hybrid culture that brings teams together in person 3 to 4 days a week — and every Friday, the whole company gathers for our Team Sync: breakfast, new hire welcomes, product updates, fireside chats, and yes, the occasional Kahoot. It's one of the things people notice when they join us — that we truly enjoy spending time together.

Our culture is shaped by five values we live every day:

• Be Intellectually Honest — Truth over comfort. We face reality clearly and speak directly, even when it's hard.
• Play to Win — We're not here to participate. We're here to be the #1 compensation platform in the world, and we act like it.
• Uphold the Pave Platinum Standard — We hold ourselves to the highest bar — for our customers, our data, and each other.
• One Team — We win and lose together. Titles don't drive decisions here — shared goals do.
• Hug of Jawn — Hard to define, impossible to miss. Ask your recruiter.

Our Vision: Unlock a labor market built on trust.

Our Mission: Build confidence in every compensation decision.

We build software that transforms how companies pay their people — and we believe the team behind that software deserves the same thoughtfulness. If you're ready to help shape the future of compensation alongside people who are smart, humble, and genuinely motivated by the problem we're solving, we'd love to meet you.

Still deliberating? Just apply! We're always excited to meet people who are eager to contribute.