Staff Software Engineer, AI Foundations (AI Agent Optimization)

Role Description

We have an opening to hire a Staff Software Engineer - Agent Optimization. Temporal provides a reliable foundation powering AI leaders such as OpenAI, NVIDIA, Cursor, Lovable, Replit, and others. Its adoption is expanding to users spanning a broad range of AI applications ranging from agents to data pipelines and everything in between.

The mission of the AI Foundations team is to accelerate Temporal adoption across the entire ecosystem. Our approach combines a deep understanding of use cases with rigorous application of computer systems and software design principles.

In this role, you will lead our agent optimization efforts. You will:

• Design tools and mechanisms to help Temporal users build agents that are optimized for token spend and response time while maintaining result quality.
• Work closely with other AI Foundations team members, focusing on agentic development and maintaining a set of agents skills that lift performance of Codex, Claude Code, and similar tools for developers of Temporal applications.
• Blend theory and practice in an action-oriented group that loves to ship fast and solve customer problems.

Most of Temporal’s work is open source—see for yourself here .

What You Will Do

• Work as a software engineer.
• Maintain and expand a deep understanding of agentic coding.
• Design and build agentic coding systems that we can trust to deliver high-quality outputs.
• Develop a deep understanding of AI application development patterns and techniques, including emerging approaches and architectures.
• Take end-to-end ownership of new features, working with other teams to deliver exceptional reliability and a great developer experience.
• Work with multiple programming languages: Python, TypeScript, Java, Go.
• 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 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 our teams’ 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. Our work is 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

• 8+ years of professional work experience.
• Proven experience in optimizing AI systems using both machine learning and systems techniques.
• Experience and passion for harnessing generative AI, particularly for agents and coding.
• A deep appreciation for how to use AI to improve 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.
• 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).
• A track record of open source software contributions, including contributions to 3rd party libraries.
• Experience contributing to the architecture and design of large-scale distributed systems.
• Deep background in machine learning, model training, data science, or machine learning 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. Compensation ranges reflect salary and commission compensation (when applicable) across several geographic markets. Employment offers carefully consider multiple factors, including prior experience, knowledge, expertise, skillset, market location, and job level assessed during the interview process.

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, 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, home office setup, 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.

Equal Opportunity Statement

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.

We are not working with external recruitment agencies, thanks.