Zoox

Fully electric autonomous ride-hailing service platform

Senior/Staff Software Engineer - AI/ML Models, Agents & Tools

AI Application Engineering +1Confirmed live in the last 24 hours

Full-timeFoster City, CA, USA$215k - $294k /yrHybrid

About the Job

Requirements

A BS or MS in Computer Science or a related field and 7+ years of software engineering experience, with strength in integration, platform, or backend roles.
Strong Python skills for production services, asynchronous I/O, and automated testing, and comfort working in a large monorepo with CI-driven delivery.
Deep experience with HTTP integration, including REST, JSON-RPC, TLS, and debugging under load, and shipping services on Kubernetes, including deployments, health checks, and troubleshooting.
Experience integrating authentication mechanisms, including bearer tokens, JWT validation, OAuth2/OIDC or enterprise SSO concepts, and least-privilege scoping.

Responsibilities

Own and lead integration strategy and execution across hosted services, shared libraries, standardized tool protocols such as JSON-RPC over HTTP, REST APIs, and diverse callers, including vendor agents, consoles, and automation workers.
Drive cross-functional delivery with backend API teams, partner agent owners, security, SRE/platform, and program management, ensuring formal sign-off where required.
Debug and root-cause complex failures using structured logs, distributed traces, metrics, and gateway/session-token behavior, and document durable mitigations and runbooks.
Define and review integration artifacts, including contracts, allowlists, registry configuration, environment matrices, and interface assumptions for upstream and downstream teams.
Contribute to release gating by ensuring container image promotion, configuration and secrets posture, smoke-path execution for high-traffic flows, and disciplined branching and tagging for production intent.
Integrate a tool-centric agent runtime with external and internal agent clients, line-of-business backends, scheduled and interactive agent workloads, and cloud operations including Kubernetes, observability, and secrets management.
Translate architecture and security intent into stable tool contracts, testable integration milestones, and repeatable releases, and serve as the primary engineer for issues at the boundary between product surfaces, platform services, and upstream systems.

Desired Qualifications

Exposure to Model Context Protocol (MCP) or similar agent tool-calling and orchestration models used in industry or internal platforms.
Observability-led integration habits, including metrics, traces, structured logging, and basic SLO or dashboard thinking for integration health.
Background in security-sensitive integrations, including data minimization, external partner access, and review cycles with security or compliance.

Salary Range: 215000 to 294000 (Currency: USD) (Pay period: per-year-salary)

As a Technical Lead on Zoox's internal agentic platform, you will own end-to-end integration of a tool-centric agent runtime with external and internal agent clients, line of business backends, scheduled and interactive agent workloads, and cloud operations (Kubernetes, observability, secrets management). You will translate architecture and security intent into stable tool contracts, testable integration milestones, and repeatable releases, and you will be the primary engineer when issues sit at the boundary between product surfaces, platform services, and upstream systems.

This role is platform and service integration for an agentic framework that mediates tools (discovery, invocation, policy, and telemetry). Success is measured by reliable tool call paths over HTTP, correct authentication and scoping, environment parity from dev through production, and clear ownership across partner engineering, security, and infrastructure teams.

In this role, you will:

Own and lead integration strategy and execution across hosted services, shared libraries, standardized tool protocols (e.g., JSON-RPC over HTTP), REST APIs, and diverse callers (vendor agents, consoles, automation workers).
Drive cross-functional delivery with backend API teams, partner agent owners, security, SRE/platform, and program management, ensuring formal sign-off where required.
Debug and root-cause complex failures using structured logs, distributed traces, metrics, and gateway/session-token behavior, documenting durable mitigations and runbooks.
Define and review all integration artifacts (contracts, allowlists, registry config, environment matrices, and interface assumptions) that upstream and downstream teams implement against.
Contribute to release gating by ensuring container image promotion, configuration/secrets posture, smoke path execution for high-traffic flows, and disciplined branching/tagging for production intent

Qualifications:

BS or MS in Computer Science or a related field with 7+ years of software engineering experience, strong in integration, platform, or backend roles.
Strong Python (production services, async I/O, automated testing) and comfort in a large monorepo with CI-driven delivery.
Deep experience with HTTP integration (REST/JSON-RPC, TLS, debugging under load) and shipping services on Kubernetes (deployments, health checks, troubleshooting).
Auth integration experience: bearer tokens, JWT validation, OAuth2/OIDC or enterprise SSO concepts, and least-privilege scoping

Bonus Qualifications

Exposure to Model Context Protocol (MCP) or similar agent tool-calling and orchestration models used in industry or internal platforms.
Observability-led integration habits: metrics, traces, structured logging, and basic SLO or dashboard thinking for integration health.
Background in security-sensitive integrations (data minimization, external partner access, review cycles with security or compliance).

About Zoox

Zoox is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market. Sitting at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and design, Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. We’re looking for top talent that shares our passion and wants to be part of a fast-moving and highly execution-oriented team.

Accommodations

If you need an accommodation to participate in the application or interview process please reach out to [email protected] or your assigned recruiter.

A Final Note:

You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Zoox, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

About the Company

Zoox

Fully electric autonomous ride-hailing service platform

Zoox designs and operates an autonomous ride-hailing service built around a purpose-built, fully electric vehicle designed specifically for autonomous operation. The vehicle uses advanced sensors, cameras, and AI to navigate complex urban environments, offering a four-passenger interior for comfort. Unlike competitors that retrofit existing cars, Zoox engineers both the vehicle and the service from the ground up, enabling optimized safety, efficiency, and passenger experience through integrated software that optimizes routing and reduces wait times. The company emphasizes safety through extensive testing and regulatory collaboration, and sustainability via electric mobility. The ultimate goal is to provide a smarter, safer, and more efficient urban transportation system that improves city life while reducing emissions.

Company size: 5,001-10,000
Company stage: Acquired
Total funding: $1.2B
Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA
Founded: 2014

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