Staff Engineer, Agentic Backend

The Opportunity

Sema4.ai is building an Enterprise AI Agent platform that transforms knowledge work by enabling collaboration between people and AI agents. As a Staff Backend Engineer on the Agent Platform, you'll bridge the gap between the AI team's cognitive architectures and the production systems that bring these capabilities to life.

Who You Are

• Agent Systems Engineer: You transform LLM- and agent-based building blocks into production systems. You design systems that handle the sharp edges of agent systems and ensure they are robust and reliable.
• Platform-Oriented Builder: You focus on creating APIs, contracts, and extensible systems that other engineers and customers can build upon.
• Product-Minded Technologist: You collaborate closely with product and design teams, ensuring that features are designed with usability and reliability in mind.
• Engineer With Judgment: You balance speed and stability, considering failure modes, migrations, and operational realities from the outset.

What You’ll Do

• Build product-grade agent infrastructure, including execution engines, workflow orchestration, tool invocation frameworks, document processing systems, database interfaces, authentication and authorization, and lifecycle management.
• Turn AI capabilities into features by working closely with the AI team and translating product intent into backend abstractions.
• Ensure reliability, scale, and operability of agent-powered systems, handling retries, partial failures, long-running workflows, cost controls, and performance tradeoffs.
• Influence API design, data models, and internal contracts to maintain the platform's cohesion as it grows.
• Contribute to technical leadership by participating in design reviews, code reviews, setting engineering standards, and mentoring other engineers.

What You Bring

• 7+ years of backend software engineering experience in production systems, with a strong background in Python and related technologies.
• Experience with LLM- or agent-based systems, particularly in areas like orchestration, tools, and workflow execution.
• Strong product and systems thinking, understanding how technical decisions impact user experience.
• Effective communication skills, both in writing and speaking, to collaborate with various stakeholders.
• A high-ownership mindset, taking responsibility for the long-term health and integrity of the systems you build.