Senior / Staff Software Engineer

Location - San Mateo, CA (On-site) - 4 days/week in-office in San Mateo. Flexible hours — the team typically works 10:30am–6:30pm.

Compensation - $300,000 – $350,000 Base + Competitive Equity

Visa - Open to Visa Transfers (OPT, H1B Transfers)

Company Stage - Seed / Series A in Progress

Industry - Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous AI Research, Agentic AI, ML Infrastructure, AI Research Automation, Enterprise Software

About the Company

Autoscience Institute is building AI systems that autonomously conduct AI research.

The company is developing autonomous research agents capable of discovering, evaluating, and improving AI systems with minimal human intervention. Autoscience has already demonstrated autonomous AI research capabilities, including an AI agent that autonomously created peer-reviewed literature at the ICLR 2025 Workshops.

The company's commercial product, Mira, is an autonomous research agent already deployed at top-three global quantitative trading firms and has delivered 20%+ model performance improvements.

Backed by General Catalyst, Perplexity Fund, S32, MaC Ventures, and Toyota Ventures, Autoscience has raised $14M and is currently progressing toward a Series A. The company operates with a tiny, highly technical team of approximately 10 people.

As a Senior / Staff Software Engineer, you'll join one of the company's earliest senior engineering hires and work directly on the systems powering autonomous AI research.

This is a high-leverage individual contributor opportunity where you'll write production Python, build recursive self-improvement systems, improve agentic discovery infrastructure, and translate research ideas into reliable production software.

The team operates with exceptional autonomy and iteration speed. Engineers are expected to own complex projects end-to-end, make architectural decisions independently, and operate without significant handholding.

What You'll Do

• Build and optimize the recursive self-improvement pipeline powering Mira
• Develop production systems that enable autonomous AI research
• Build and improve the agentic discovery search system
• Develop robust post-training infrastructure for customer-specific AI models
• Build systems for training and fine-tuning models based on customer requirements
• Write high-performance Python algorithms focused on improving autonomous research speed
• Optimize production systems for performance, reliability, and scalability
• Translate experimental research ideas into production-ready engineering systems
• Collaborate closely with AI researchers and engineers on new autonomous research capabilities
• Design and implement backend infrastructure supporting autonomous AI workflows
• Improve the reliability and observability of AI research systems
• Debug complex production systems and identify performance bottlenecks
• Own major technical projects from initial architecture through production deployment
• Make architecture and technical direction decisions as one of the earliest senior engineers
• Build infrastructure capable of supporting increasingly sophisticated AI research agents
• Work closely with the founding team to shape the technical roadmap
• Establish engineering practices that maintain code quality as the company scales
• Operate with high autonomy and move quickly from experimentation to production
• Help define the engineering foundation for recursive AI research systems

Ideal Candidate Background

Experience Requirements

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong experience building production software systems
• Experience owning complex technical projects end-to-end
• Experience building backend or infrastructure systems
• Experience working on AI/ML systems or AI-powered products
• Experience operating production systems at scale
• Experience translating research or experimental concepts into production software
• Experience working effectively in small, high-performing engineering teams
• Strong ownership mentality with demonstrated technical autonomy
• Experience making architecture and system design decisions independently
• Comfortable operating without extensive processes or handholding
• Experience working closely with research and engineering teams

Technical Requirements

• Expert-level Python engineering experience
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals
• Experience building production AI/ML infrastructure
• Experience with ML training, post-training, or model fine-tuning systems
• Experience building agentic AI systems or autonomous workflows
• Experience with AI research infrastructure
• Strong understanding of algorithms and performance optimization
• Experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or comparable cloud infrastructure
• Experience designing scalable backend infrastructure
• Experience with production observability and monitoring
• Strong debugging and performance optimization skills
• Experience building reliable production systems
• Strong software architecture and system design capabilities
• Ability to write clean, maintainable, high-performance production code
• Experience working with AI models, inference systems, or ML infrastructure preferred

Education

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related technical field preferred
• Strong computer science and software engineering fundamentals
• Advanced technical depth in algorithms, systems, AI/ML, or infrastructure preferred

Soft Skills

• Exceptional engineering ownership
• Strong technical judgment
• Extremely high attention to code quality
• Excellent problem-solving ability
• Comfortable working independently
• High execution velocity
• Strong research-to-production mindset
• Comfortable operating in ambiguous environments
• Strong communication and collaboration skills
• Comfortable working directly with researchers and founders
• Low-ego collaborative mentality
• Strong curiosity around AI and autonomous research
• Passion for solving difficult technical problems
• Ability to rapidly iterate and improve systems
• Comfortable working in a tiny, highly technical startup environment

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary: $300,000 – $350,000
• Competitive Equity Package
• Compensation competitive with major frontier AI labs
• Unlimited PTO
• Flexible working arrangements
• Conference attendance
• Publication support
• Opportunity to work directly on autonomous AI research systems
• High ownership as one of the company's earliest senior engineering hires
• Direct collaboration with founders and AI researchers
• Opportunity to shape architecture and technical direction
• Exposure to cutting-edge agentic AI and recursive self-improvement systems

Why Join

This is a rare opportunity to work on AI systems designed to autonomously conduct AI research.

You'll be one of the earliest senior engineering hires at a highly technical AI startup, working directly on the infrastructure behind Mira and helping build systems capable of recursive self-improvement.

You'll have substantial ownership over architecture, production systems, performance optimization, and the translation of cutting-edge research ideas into real-world software.

If you enjoy writing exceptional production code, solving difficult AI infrastructure problems, working closely with researchers, and operating with extreme autonomy, this role offers exceptional technical scope and impact.