Staff Software Engineer

Pinecone is the trusted AI knowledge company. Its trusted AI knowledge platform—including its Database, Nexus, and Marketplace products—power accurate, fast, and cost-effective AI applications for more than 10,000 customers and 1M developers worldwide. Pinecone's mission is to make AI knowledgeable. For more information, visit pinecone.io.

The Experience team is at the center of one of the most exciting transitions in software development history — the shift from human-driven to agent-driven product experiences. We own Pinecone's API, clients, authentication, revenue, and observability systems, and right now that means redesigning all of it for a world where AI agents are first-class users alongside humans.

This is a wide-scope role. You'll own things end-to-end — from backend architecture to API design to SDK and web surfaces. You’ll be working closely with product, design, and other engineering teams to identify user needs and build the right thing, at the right abstraction level, at the right time. Along the way, you will be building high-leverage platform capabilities that accelerate Pinecone’s product development and user growth systems.

We're looking for an engineer who sees this moment for what it is: a rare opportunity to shape how developers and agents interact with a category-defining product. You're not waiting to see how the industry figures out MCP, agentic workflows, and AI-native interfaces — you're already experimenting, already forming opinions, already building. You know that speed and leverage matter more than labor, and you've internalized AI-assisted development not as a productivity trick but as a fundamentally different way of working.

Responsibilities:

• Pioneer our agent experience. Shape how AI agents interact with Pinecone — designing interfaces, protocols (MCP), and tooling that make Pinecone the easiest and most capable platform for agentic workflows to build on.
• Ship end-to-end experiences across API, SDK, CLI, and web. You'll own the full surface, from the layer to the UI, and you'll make calls across all of it.
• Build systems that multiply team output. We care about what ships, not how many hours went into it. Design AI-powered workflows, automated quality gates, and high-leverage platform capabilities that let a small team move at a pace that would otherwise require 10x the headcount.
• Set the standard for AI-assisted development on the team. Use the best tools available — Claude Code, Cursor, or whatever works — and help establish patterns that make the whole team faster.
• Collaborate with product, design, and engineering to identify what users (and agents) actually need and build it at the right abstraction level, at the right time.
• Build observable, auditable systems with monitoring, alerting, and verification mechanisms — because in a high-velocity environment, you need systems that tell you when something's wrong.

Requirements:

Senior and Staff Engineers at Pinecone operate with high autonomy. You'll be an active partner in setting strategy on APIs, agent interfaces, observability, and developer experience — not just executing on a roadmap. We care more about how you think and how you work than whether your resume checks every box.

You should have:

• At least 4 years of software engineering experience
• A bias toward automation and leverage — you reach for systems and tooling before you reach for elbow grease
• Hands-on experience shipping with AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, or similar) as a genuine part of your workflow
• Proven ability to design and deliver versioned APIs, SDKs, or client libraries
• Proficiency building web interfaces with React or similar
• Experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Strong intuition for what makes APIs easy for both humans and agents to use correctly
• Experience building or consuming MCP servers, or designing APIs explicitly for agent use cases
• Familiarity with agentic frameworks and the emerging patterns around tool use, orchestration, and agent-to-agent communication
• Strong familiarity with a compiled language like Rust, Go, or Java
• Experience with large-scale open-source projects
• Comprehensive health coverage including medical, dental, vision, and mental health resources
• 401(k) Plan
• Equity award
• Flexible time off
• Paid parental leave
• Annual Company Retreat
• WFH Equipment Stipend

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, veteran status, and any other legally protected status under federal, state, or local anti-discrimination laws.