Staff Software Engineer

About the role

The Staff Software Engineer role at interface.ai is for someone who has already proven they can build and is now ready to define how we build. You'll set the architectural direction for our core platform, operate as a technical authority across multiple engineering workstreams, and work in close partnership with our VP of Engineering, CTO and Co-Founder Bruce Kim, and CEO Srinivas Njay.

What You'll Work On

• Define and own the technical architecture of interface.ai's platform — multi-modal APIs, real-time event systems, AI orchestration layers, and data infrastructure
• Lead cross-functional technical initiatives: decompose ambiguous product bets into engineering roadmaps, mitigate systemic risks before they materialize, and drive resolution when they do
• Architect scalable, production-grade agentic AI and conversational AI systems — including LLM integration layers, retrieval pipelines, tool-use orchestration, and evaluation frameworks
• Establish the engineering standards that will hold as we scale from 30 to 300 engineers: service contracts, data models, deployment patterns, observability, and reliability targets
• Serve as the technical bridge between product vision and engineering reality — you translate ambition into architecture, and architecture into shipped systems
• Deeply embed AI-native development (Claude Code, Cursor) into engineering practice and help your peers build faster with it
• Mentor and elevate senior engineers — your job is to make the team around you better, faster, and more autonomous
• Operate in-person, in SF, 5 days a week — influence happens in rooms, on whiteboards, and in code reviews, not async threads

What We're Looking For

• 8+ years of software engineering, with the last several in roles where you set technical direction — not just executed it
• A clear record of architectural wins: systems you designed that scaled, survived production, and that others still rely on
• Expert-level proficiency in TypeScript and Python; strong JavaScript for full-stack contributions; comfort working across the stack when the problem demands it
• Deep platform engineering expertise: distributed system design, event-driven architectures, cloud-native infrastructure, multi-tenancy, and horizontal scale
• AI engineering depth: you understand the internals of LLM-based systems — context management, tool-use patterns, latency/cost trade-offs, evaluation strategy, and the emerging architecture of agentic AI
• The ability to design for uncertainty — you build systems that can evolve as requirements change, not systems that assume stability
• B.S./B.A. in Computer Science required; M.S. or Ph.D. in CS, AI, or a related field is a meaningful plus

Bonus Points

• Architected production conversational AI systems, voice AI, or real-time NLP pipelines
• Deep domain experience in fintech, payments, core banking, or financial data infrastructure
• Experience as a founding or early-stage engineer at a startup that shipped at scale
• Published work, open-source contributions, or recognized technical writing in AI systems or platform engineering

This Role Is — And Isn't

This is not a principal-in-title-only role. You'll write code, review systems, and make judgment calls that affect the entire company. You'll partner directly with leadership — not through layers of management — and your architectural decisions will ship to production in weeks, not quarters. If you want to work at a place where your decisions can be felt, this is it.

Benefits

• 100% paid health, dental & vision care
• 401(k) & financial wellness perks
• Tdiscretionary PTO + paid parental leave
• Brain health, wellness & family benefits
• 🚀 A mission-driven team shaping the future of banking

Why Interface.ai

• We're cash-flow positive with $30M in Series A funding, which means we have the runway to build right and the discipline not to waste it.
• Our mission — democratizing financial wellness through AI — is real, measurable, and winning.
• We offer top-of-market comp, meaningful equity at Series A prices, full benefits, and a culture built around engineers who take ownership and deliver.
• The team is small enough that your fingerprints will be on everything.
• The ambition is large enough that what you build will matter for a long time.

Compensation Range

$263,245 - $310,043