Software Engineer, Developer Productivity, AI Tools

About The Role

We are hiring a developer productivity engineer to advance how we build software internally: safely, quickly, and with delight. The main focus are AI tools and coding agents. You'll partner with platform, security, and product engineers to build state-of-the-art tooling for AI-assisted software development, and make our inner loop dramatically faster. The scope of this role includes both setting up company-wide platforms and working with developers to accelerate their individual workflows.

What You'll Do

• Enable our researchers and engineers to leverage AI to improve coding productivity without compromising code quality
• Standardize AI coding tools, such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex. You will help configure, harden, and maintain the best tools, integrating org-wide configurations with individual preferences.
• Build secure, reproducible agent sandboxes for remote dev & CI testing.
• Set up golden-path dev environments and guardrails for secrets/PII.
• Help individual contributors develop their personalized AI-enabled workflow.
• Track tool usage, reliability, and cost.

Qualifications

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent industry experience in computer science, engineering, or similar.
• Experience developing productivity tools and best practices for large codebases.
• Ability to communicate clearly and work with researchers to build and manage a variety of internal tools.

Preferred qualifications — we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet all preferred qualifications, but at least some:

• Hands-on experience with container platforms (e.g. Docker/Kubernetes), modern CI (GitHub Actions/Buildkite), and package management tools (uv).
• Practical experience with AI coding tools and model APIs (e.g. OSS via vLLM / SGLang / TGI).
• Solid Linux/networking fundamentals; comfort with secrets management and safe egress.
• Proficiency in systems programming languages (e.g. Rust) and scripting languages (e.g. Python).

Logistics

Location: This role is based in San Francisco, California.

Compensation: Depending on background, skills and experience, the expected annual salary range for this position is $350,000 - $475,000 USD.

Visa sponsorship: We sponsor visas. While we can't guarantee success for every candidate or role, if you're the right fit, we're committed to working through the visa process together.

Benefits: Thinking Machines offers generous health, dental, and vision benefits, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, and relocation support as needed.