OPT AI Software Developer Jobs
AI Software Developer jobs are among the most actively sponsored roles for F-1 OPT students, with employers across tech, healthcare, and finance regularly filing H-1B visa petitions for qualified candidates. Your 12-month OPT period, extendable to 36 months with a STEM extension, gives you time to land a role and pursue long-term sponsorship.
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INTRODUCTION
Build a safer world with us, one incident at a time. Ambient.ai is the category creator and leader in Agentic Physical Security. Powered by Ambient Pulsar, the first reasoning Vision-Language Model purpose-built for physical security, our platform seamlessly integrates with existing security cameras and physical access control systems to unify monitoring, access control, threat assessment, response, and investigations through an always-on reasoning layer that augments security operators with superhuman capabilities. The results: 95% fewer false alarms, investigations 20x faster, and 10x faster response. The momentum speaks for itself: we doubled new ARR in FY26, and have delivered results for world-class customers including Cisco, ServiceNow, SentinelOne, TikTok, Bayer, and MoMA. That kind of momentum creates an environment where great people thrive, and it shows: we recently ranked #71 out of 500 on the Forbes best startup employers list. Founded in 2017 and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and Allegion Ventures, Ambient.ai is on a fast-paced journey to fulfill our mission: prevent every security incident possible. Ready to learn more? Connect with us on LinkedIn and YouTube.
ABOUT THE ROLE
Reporting to Raghu Nallamothu, you will design, build, and optimize the AI infrastructure that powers Ambient.ai’s real-time intelligence platform. In this role, you will work on the systems required to run state-of-the-art deep learning models across many terabytes of video data in real time. You will help build and scale infrastructure for inference, evaluation, and continuous model improvement across computer vision models, large language models, large vision models, and multimodal AI systems. This role is ideal for someone with a strong blend of infrastructure engineering, production ML systems, LLM/LVM inference, evaluation harnesses, and inference optimization experience. You will partner closely with research scientists and product engineering teams to bring the latest AI advancements into production for our customers.
- Design, build, and maintain cutting-edge AI infrastructure for real-time computer vision, LLM, LVM, and multimodal inference workloads.
- Build scalable systems for running state-of-the-art models across large volumes of video and sensor data.
- Optimize inference performance across latency, throughput, GPU utilization, reliability, and cost.
- Develop robust evaluation harnesses and benchmarking systems to measure model quality, system performance, regressions, and production readiness.
- Build infrastructure for continuous model evaluation, experimentation, and deployment.
- Partner with research scientists to productionize the latest advances in computer vision, LLMs, LVMs, RAG, and multimodal AI.
- Improve model-serving architecture, including batching, caching, routing, quantization, model parallelism, and hardware utilization.
- Develop data engines and feedback loops for collecting training data, evaluating model behavior, and continuously improving AI performance.
- Create reliable observability, monitoring, and debugging tools for production AI systems.
- Help define best practices for deploying, evaluating, and operating AI systems in real-world enterprise environments.
What You'll Bring
- 2+ years of industry experience building infrastructure, distributed systems, machine learning platforms, or production AI systems.
- BS/MS in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Strong programming background, especially in Python, with solid software engineering fundamentals.
- Experience designing and building scalable machine learning infrastructure for training, inference, evaluation, and deployment.
- Hands-on experience running deep learning models in production, ideally including LLMs, LVMs, vision-language models, or multimodal models.
- Strong understanding of inference optimization techniques, including batching, caching, quantization, parallelism, memory optimization, GPU utilization, and latency reduction.
- Experience with model-serving frameworks or systems such as vLLM, Triton Inference Server or similar technologies.
- Experience building evaluation frameworks, test harnesses, benchmarks, regression tests, or model-quality measurement systems.
- Strong background in machine learning and deep learning; computer vision experience is a strong plus.
- Experience designing data engines or pipelines for collecting, managing, and curating training and evaluation data.
- Familiarity with integrating advanced AI systems such as LLMs, LVMs, RAG pipelines, embedding models, or multimodal models into production applications.
- Experience with cloud infrastructure, containers, orchestration, distributed systems, and GPU-based workloads.
- Strong collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with research scientists, product teams, infrastructure teams, and stakeholders.
- Proactive problem-solving ability, a strong ownership mindset, and adaptability to incorporate new AI technologies and methodologies.
Nice to Have
- Experience operating large-scale GPU infrastructure or distributed inference systems.
- Experience with CUDA, NCCL, PyTorch, TensorRT, ONNX, or similar ML systems technologies.
- Experience with video understanding, real-time computer vision, multimodal AI, or physical-world AI systems.
- Experience with model compression, speculative decoding, distillation, pruning, or low-latency serving techniques.
- Experience with prompt evaluation, model regression testing, human-in-the-loop evaluation, or automated quality gates.
- Familiarity with retrieval-augmented generation, vector databases, embedding models, re-rankers, or search infrastructure.
- Experience building internal ML platforms or tools used by researchers and applied ML teams.
What Success Looks Like
You will be successful in this role if you can build practical, scalable infrastructure that helps Ambient.ai deploy better AI models faster and more reliably. You should be comfortable working across the full stack of production AI systems, from model behavior and evaluation to serving architecture, GPU performance, observability, and customer-facing reliability. This is a hands-on engineering role for someone excited to help bring the next generation of AI, computer vision, LLMs, and LVMs into real-world production environments.
Why Join Us
- We are creating an entirely new category within a 180+ billion-dollar physical security industry and looking for team members who are also passionate about our mission to prevent every security incident possible.
- We partner with an incredible customer roster of F500 companies, including Adobe, TikTok, Gap and SentinelOne.
- Regular Full-time employees receive stock options for the opportunity to share ownership in the success of our company.
- Comprehensive health + welfare package (Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, EAP, Legal Services, 401k plan).
- We offer flexible time off to rest and recharge, including Winter Break (time off between Christmas and New Year’s for most roles, depending on customer demand).
- The latest tech and awesome swag will be delivered to your door.
- Enjoy a full range of opportunities to connect with your awesome co-workers.
- We love to hike, are foodies, and love music! Check out our most recent Ambient Spotify Playlist.
We’ve found that in-person time meaningfully supports collaboration, creativity, and team alignment. Our talent, engineering, product, design, and marketing teams work from our Redwood City office three days a week. All other Bay Area employees join on Fridays to stay connected and close out the week together. Ready to learn more? Connect with us on LinkedIn | YouTube.
Ambient.ai is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. Ambient does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, legally protected medical condition, family care status, military or veteran status, marital status, registered domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, or any other basis protected by local, state, or federal laws. Ambient is an E-Verify participant.
See all 338+ OPT AI Software Developer Jobs
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Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding OPT Sponsorship as an AI Software Developer
Filter for STEM OPT-eligible employers
Target companies with an active E-Verify enrollment, which is required for the 24-month STEM extension. Without E-Verify, you can only work for 12 months, cutting your runway to find a sponsored position significantly short.
Lead with your AI specialization
Hiring managers distinguish between general software engineers and AI specialists. Specify your focus area, whether it's LLMs, computer vision, or MLOps, in your resume headline and cover letter so recruiters can immediately assess fit.
Confirm the role qualifies under your degree
OPT employment must be directly related to your field of study. An AI Software Developer role is a strong match for CS, data science, or electrical engineering degrees. Document the connection clearly in case your DSO or employer asks.
Ask about H-1B sponsorship before final rounds
Raise sponsorship during the offer stage, not after signing. Ask specifically whether the company has sponsored H-1B visa petitions before and whether this role qualifies. Vague answers now create serious problems when your OPT expires.
Build a portfolio of deployed AI work
Employers sponsoring OPT candidates want evidence of production-ready skills. GitHub repositories with real datasets, model benchmarks, and API integrations carry more weight than coursework projects in technical screening rounds.
Time your STEM extension application carefully
File your STEM OPT extension request at least 90 days before your current EAD expires. Your employer must sign a formal training plan. Starting this process late puts your work authorization at risk during active job searches.
AI Software Developer OPT: Frequently Asked Questions
Does an AI Software Developer role qualify for the STEM OPT extension?
Yes, in most cases. If your degree is in computer science, data science, electrical engineering, or a related STEM field, and the role involves building or researching AI systems, it qualifies. The job must be directly related to your degree, and your employer must be enrolled in E-Verify and co-sign a formal training plan with your DSO.
How do I find AI Software Developer jobs that sponsor OPT and H-1B?
Migrate Mate filters specifically for employers open to OPT and visa sponsorship, so you are not wasting applications on companies that will not sponsor. Standard job boards mix sponsored and non-sponsored roles with no way to filter. For international students on a tight OPT clock, that distinction matters more than anything else in your search.
Can I work on AI projects for a startup on OPT?
Yes, but the startup must pay you as a W-2 employee and meet the standard OPT employment requirements. The role must relate to your degree, and you cannot work as an independent contractor unless you qualify for self-employment OPT, which requires you to have a legitimate business. Most early-stage startups can satisfy these requirements as long as they are paying wages.
What if my AI Software Developer job involves both research and product work?
That is common in this field and generally not a problem for OPT purposes. What matters is that the overall role connects to your degree field, not that every task is purely technical. Document the research components in your offer letter or job description, as this strengthens your case for the STEM extension and helps your DSO confirm eligibility.
How soon should I start looking for AI Software Developer jobs on OPT?
Start at least three to four months before your program end date. USCIS can take up to 90 days to process an OPT EAD, and you cannot work until you receive it. For roles with lengthy technical interview processes, common in AI engineering, starting early gives you enough runway to complete multiple rounds before your authorization window opens.