Chief Engineer (Staff Engineer)
Job Summary
As Chief Engineer you will own a critical domain end to end at a profitable, category leading AI company. This senior technical leadership role combines deep hands on architecture and coding with steering engineers and leads across pods. You will partner as an equal with your Domain PM, run a pod directly, and hold a weekly council seat alongside the founders. This is leadership through technical credibility rather than headcount, with the opportunity to shape the future of AI in banking.
Essential Functions
- Design and build complex systems for your domain while writing production code and setting the technical standard by example
- Maintain the technical bar by shipping features, conducting code reviews, and enforcing quality and velocity standards across pods
- Steer and unblock engineers and technical leads in your domain while growing overall team capability without shifting to pure management
- Partner closely with your Domain PM to deliver measurable business outcomes and impact
- Embed frontier AI models and development tools into standard practice to create an AI native way of working
- Own outcomes for your domain including the core runtime, intelligence systems, AI agents, integrations, data platforms, or consumer experiences
Required Qualifications
- 6 to 14 years of experience as a staff or principal software engineer
- Proven track record owning a critical system or product end to end from concept to production
- Experience at a startup through a scaling stage with sub 500 employees where you built technology of lasting value
- Background as a hands on technical founder who has successfully scaled a product
- Strong generalist engineering skills with the ability to lead specific pods with high ownership
- BS or BA in Computer Science or a related technical field
Preferred Qualifications
- MS or PhD in a related technical field
- Direct experience building or transforming AI platforms with measurable impact
- Zero to one thinking demonstrated through taking projects from initial concept through production deployment
- Prior work in financial services or fintech environments
Technical Skills
- Python
- React
- Node.js
- AI runtime and intelligence systems including knowledge retrieval and evaluation
- Building and deploying AI agents across voice and chat interfaces
- System integrations and computer use capabilities
- Data platforms and cross customer fraud detection
- Operational systems for reliability and performance at scale
- Embedding frontier models and AI development tools into team workflows
Education & Certifications
BS/BA in Computer Science or a related technical field is required. MS or PhD in a related field is preferred.
Compensation & Benefits
Compensation for this role ranges from $330000 to $375000. Exact offer will be based on experience, skills, and location. This is a direct hire opportunity with a high impact team.