Staff AI Engineer
HarnhamAbout the role
Senior/Staff AI Engineer (Founding Team)
Remote (US) | $150,000 to $220,000 base salary + equity
This is a unique opportunity to join a high-growth AI business at an inflection point in its journey. As part of the founding AI Engineering team, you will play a pivotal role in building production-grade agentic AI systems that deliver measurable value to customers while helping shape the company's technical direction, engineering standards, and culture from the ground up.
The Company
They are a venture-backed AI company developing next-generation AI infrastructure and intelligent workflow automation products. Rather than applying AI to existing solutions, they are building foundational platforms that enable agent orchestration, automation, and scalable production AI systems. Following recent investment, they are expanding their engineering team and investing heavily in product innovation. Their environment is collaborative, fast-moving, and focused on delivering tangible business outcomes.
The Role
You will work closely with engineering and product leadership to build, deploy, and optimise AI-powered products used in real-world customer environments.
Key responsibilities include:
Designing and developing production AI features from concept through deployment
Building agentic workflows and orchestration frameworks
Developing intelligent automation solutions for complex business processes
Optimising model performance, latency, reliability, and cost efficiency
Collaborating with Product teams to measure customer impact and business outcomes
Contributing across the full software development lifecycle
Influencing technical architecture, engineering practices, and platform strategy
Supporting the development of scalable AI systems in a greenfield environment
Your Skills & Experience
You will bring strong commercial software engineering experience combined with hands-on expertise in modern AI technologies.
Key requirements:
Experience building and deploying production LLM applications
Expertise in agentic AI systems and workflow orchestration
Hands-on experience with LangChain or similar orchestration frameworks
Strong software engineering fundamentals and architecture capabilities
Experience delivering customer-facing AI products
Ability to own features and projects end-to-end
Experience operating effectively within startup or high-growth environments
Product-focused mindset with an emphasis on measurable outcomes
Desirable experience:
Multi-agent systems
Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures
AI evaluation and experimentation frameworks
Prompt engineering
MLOps or LLMOps practices
Cloud-native infrastructure
Exposure to advertising technology, marketing technology, or automation platforms
What They Offer
Base salary between $150,000 and $220,000
Meaningful equity participation
Fully remote working environment with access to a collaborative engineering community
Direct exposure to founders and executive leadership
Significant ownership and autonomy
Opportunity to influence platform architecture and engineering culture
Clear progression within a rapidly scaling AI organisation
Opportunity to work on cutting-edge agentic AI systems with immediate customer impact
How to Apply
If you are excited by the opportunity to build production AI systems, take ownership of complex engineering challenges, and help define the future of intelligent automation, apply today. Based on the experience you bring, candidates will be considered at Senior or Staff level
Responsibilities
- Designing and developing production AI features from concept through deployment
- Building agentic workflows and orchestration frameworks
- Developing intelligent automation solutions for complex business processes
- Optimising model performance, latency, reliability, and cost efficiency
- Collaborating with Product teams to measure customer impact and business outcomes
- Contributing across the full software development lifecycle
- Influencing technical architecture, engineering practices, and platform strategy
- Supporting the development of scalable AI systems in a greenfield environment
Qualifications
- Experience building and deploying production LLM applications
- Expertise in agentic AI systems and workflow orchestration
- Hands-on experience with LangChain or similar orchestration frameworks
- Strong software engineering fundamentals and architecture capabilities
- Experience delivering customer-facing AI products
- Ability to own features and projects end-to-end
- Experience operating effectively within startup or high-growth environments
- Product-focused mindset with an emphasis on measurable outcomes
Benefits
- Meaningful equity participation
- Fully remote working environment with access to a collaborative engineering community
- Direct exposure to founders and executive leadership
- Significant ownership and autonomy
- Opportunity to influence platform architecture and engineering culture
- Clear progression within a rapidly scaling AI organisation
- Opportunity to work on cutting-edge agentic AI systems with immediate customer impact
Skills mentioned
About Harnham
Harnham provides specialist Data and AI recruitment and staffing services, along with bespoke training solutions, across multiple industry verticals, operating in the UK, the USA and EU - contact us today to discuss your requirements: info@harnham.com Our recruitment and talent teams cover all aspects of the data and AI pipeline, from collection to consumption, across multiple data roles and functions. Whether you need full-time staff, contract talent, specialized training, Data-qualified graduates, or C-suite executives, Harnham Group is equipped to fulfill all your data talent requirements. Our five core services: * ATD - Rockborne – our graduate development arm – deploys expertly trained data consultants, who have gone through an intensive 12-week data training programme. After two years in the scheme, your consultant could become a * Contract / C2C / Freelance: Whether you're addressing a talent shortage, augmenting a project team, or encountering resource gaps, our specialist consultants offer bespoke interim talent solutions to address your unique challenges and drive success. * Full-Time / Direct Hiring: From early career professionals to senior management, our comprehensive services enable you to unearth outstanding data talent across various specializations, ensuring your organization thrives in the data-driven era. * Executive Search: With our dedicated executive search team and an extensive network encompassing the director to C-suite level, we assist both global corporations and ambitious startups in securing top-tier leadership talent to accomplish their goals. * GenAI, Prompt, LLM Training: Elevate your team's data expertise with our all-encompassing training programs covering essential tools and technologies such as Python, SQL, Machine Learning, LLM’s and AI. Highly bespoke, customised to your team learning requirements and budgets.
H-1B sponsorship history
Historical employer filing data was found for Harnham. The employer record includes 1 historical certified applications. This is employer-level history, not a guarantee that this role currently offers sponsorship.