Staff Software Engineer

About the Role

We’re looking for an exceptional engineer to join the core team at Oliv AI.

This is a high-ownership role for someone who can take an ambiguous problem, figure out the right approach, and drive it end-to-end — from architecture and prototyping to production and iteration.

You’ll primarily work on backend systems, but we don’t want engineers constrained by boundaries. If the problem requires frontend work, infrastructure, data systems, AI/LLM integrations, evaluating providers, or building internal tooling, you should be comfortable figuring it out.

We’re looking for someone who thinks beyond tickets and features — someone who improves the systems, tooling, architecture, and engineering practices around them.

What You’ll Do

• Own complex engineering problems from first principles through production
• Design simple, scalable, reliable systems and make strong architectural decisions
• Build primarily on the backend, while comfortably working across frontend, infrastructure, data, and AI when needed
• Prototype quickly, test multiple approaches, and make decisions based on evidence
• Work with modern AI tools, LLMs, agents, APIs, and providers where they can create meaningful product or engineering leverage
• Build automation and internal tooling to make yourself and the team significantly more effective
• Improve engineering quality, architecture, and development practices across the company
• Help other engineers unblock difficult technical problems and raise the overall technical bar

What We’re Looking For

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong track record of building and owning production systems
• Deep backend engineering ability, with enough breadth to work across the stack when required
• Strong system design and architectural judgment
• Ability to operate independently in ambiguous environments
• High ownership and strong product judgment
• An experimental, iterative mindset — you prototype, benchmark, automate, and continuously improve how you work
• Comfortable learning unfamiliar technologies quickly rather than being defined by a specific stack
• Strong interest in using AI-assisted development and modern engineering workflows to increase leverage

Experience at Staff, Principal, Architect, or equivalent level is a strong signal, but we care more about demonstrated ability than titles.

Why Oliv AI

We’re a small team, which means strong engineers have real influence.

You’ll have meaningful ownership over the product, architecture, and engineering culture, with the freedom to challenge existing decisions and introduce better ways of building.

We offer competitive compensation, meaningful equity, remote flexibility, strong health benefits, and the tools you need to do your best work.

If you like difficult problems, high autonomy, broad technical ownership, and building with a very high engineering bar, we’d love to talk.

How to Apply

Share a short Loom/video highlighting your career, the most interesting things you’ve built, and why you believe you’d be a great fit for this role.