San Francisco, CA
Query Talent is partnering with an early-stage AI company in San Francisco that is building production-grade AI products at the intersection of large language models, AI agents, voice technology and real-time customer experiences.
The company already has AI technology in production and is now developing a new enterprise AI agent platform designed for organizations with complex, high-volume customer interactions.
We’re looking for an AI Agent Tech Lead to join as an early, hands-on engineer on this new product. This is not a traditional management role. You’ll be writing code, building product, making foundational technical decisions and working directly with company leadership as the platform moves from prototype through customer pilots.
The right person is a strong builder who enjoys ambiguity, moves quickly and wants the opportunity to grow into broader technical leadership as the engineering organization expands.
• Build the core of a new AI agent platform from the ground up.
• Own backend and full-stack development across major areas of the product.
• Take features from early concept and prototype through customer-facing release.
• Work directly with founders and product leadership to translate evolving requirements into working software.
• Rapidly iterate based on feedback from pilot customers and real-world product usage.
• Make early architecture, technology and implementation decisions that will influence how the platform develops.
• Build with modern AI technologies including LLMs, AI agents, agent frameworks and potentially voice AI.
• Establish strong engineering practices while maintaining an emphasis on speed and practical product delivery.
• Help evaluate and hire future engineers as the team grows.
• Develop toward a larger technical leadership and architecture role over time.
• 1–5 years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong backend or full-stack engineering background.
• Experience owning software development end-to-end, from prototype through a customer-facing product, release or pilot.
• Demonstrated ability to ship product quickly and iterate based on customer feedback or changing requirements.
• Experience making meaningful architecture or technology decisions for a new product or major feature.
• Comfortable working in a startup environment where priorities can evolve quickly.
• High level of ownership and ability to operate without heavily defined requirements.
• Strong product instincts and a bias toward building and shipping rather than over-engineering early solutions.
• Interest in growing into technical leadership as the company scales.
AI Experience
Direct AI-agent experience is preferred but not required if you are otherwise a strong product-focused engineer.
Particularly relevant experience includes AI agents, agent frameworks, large language models, generative AI applications, RAG or LLM-powered workflows, tool/function calling, voice AI, conversational AI and production applications built around modern AI APIs or models.
This team is looking for a builder first.
You do not need a long resume or Big Tech pedigree. Candidates coming from early-stage startups, YC-style environments, small engineering teams or projects where they personally owned significant portions of a product can be especially compelling.
The strongest candidates will be able to point to something they personally took from idea → technical approach → working product → customer usage → iteration.
Speed, adaptability and ownership are more important at this stage than deep infrastructure optimization or experience operating systems at massive scale.
Compensation
Base salary: $160,000–$210,000
Location
San Francisco, California — onsite.
About Query Talent
Query Talent partners with growing companies to identify candidates whose experience closely matches the work they are being hired to do. Our process is focused on relevant experience, thoughtful candidate matching and a straightforward recruiting experience.