Lead AI Engineer | Build the Future of AI-Powered Design | San Francisco

This Lead AI Engineer role in San Francisco pays USD $275,000 to $350,000 and is an opportunity to join a well-funded AI startup building the next generation of creative software — a design tool in the spirit of Figma, reimagined with AI at its core. Backed by world-class investors and led by experienced founders, the team is redefining how AI and design work together through intelligent, production-ready tooling.

As the Lead AI Engineer, you'll take ownership of the AI architecture powering the platform, building sophisticated LLM-powered features, multi-step AI agent systems, and highly optimised models that deliver exceptional speed, accuracy, and reliability.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role where you'll work closely with the founders and engineering team to shape both the product and the AI strategy from the ground up.

What you'll be doing as a Lead AI Engineer

Lead the design and implementation of production AI systems

Build and deploy multi-step AI agent workflows

Fine-tune foundation models for specialised production use cases

Develop efficient, low-latency AI infrastructure and deployment pipelines

Own model evaluation, benchmarking, observability and performance optimisation

Work across the full AI stack from experimentation through to production deployment

Collaborate with product and engineering teams to deliver world-class AI experiences

What we look for in a Lead AI Engineer

5+ years' experience building production AI systems

Strong Applied AI background with end-to-end ownership of shipped AI products

Production-level TypeScript and Node.js experience (essential)

Strong Python skills

Experience with LLM fine-tuning, evaluation and optimisation

Experience building AI infrastructure focused on latency, scalability and cost efficiency

Experience deploying AI systems into production rather than purely research environments

Startup or high-growth technology company experience preferred

Highly regarded

Fine-tuning models for code generation using execution-based feedback

Experience with AI agents and autonomous workflows

ML Ops experience including deployment, monitoring and observability

Experience balancing model quality, inference speed and infrastructure cost

Why join as Lead AI Engineer?

Base salary between USD $275,000-$350,000

Meaningful equity package

Work directly alongside highly experienced founders

Backed by leading investors from some of the world's most respected technology companies

Build AI products at the forefront of one of the fastest-growing sectors in technology

High ownership, significant technical autonomy, and the chance to define the AI roadmap from the ground up

Location: San Francisco (5 days onsite)

Is this Lead AI Engineer role right for you?

The strongest candidates here are engineers who have already carried an AI feature from prototype through to something real users depend on daily, and who are comfortable owning the trade-offs between model quality, latency and cost. You do not need a research background, but you do need the judgement that comes from having shipped and maintained inference in production. If that describes you, this is a rare chance to define an AI roadmap rather than inherit one.

If you're passionate about shipping production AI systems, solving complex engineering challenges, and building products that push the boundaries of what's possible with modern AI, we'd love to hear from you.

About this Lead AI Engineer opportunity

Big Wave Digital has spent more than a decade placing senior technologists into product teams, and increasingly into AI-first startups in the United States. We will tell you honestly what the team, the funding position and the onsite expectation actually look like before you commit to an interview process, because a move of this size deserves more than a job advert.

If you want to gauge how fast this space is moving before applying, the recent AI research on arXiv is a good weekly habit. You can also browse our other technology and AI jobs if the timing on this one is not right for you.

Apply now and we will come back to you quickly with real feedback either way.