Senior AI Software Engineer Jobs in San Francisco, CA
Senior AI Software Engineer jobs in San Francisco are concentrated in SoMa, Mission Bay, and the Financial District, with strong demand from AI labs, cloud infrastructure companies, and enterprise software firms represented by Pinterest, DoorDash, and Genentech. Large language models, MLOps, and autonomous systems engineering are among the most sought-after specialties right now. Scan the live roles below and apply to whichever ones fit.
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Showing 5 of 211+ Senior AI Software Engineer jobs
INTRODUCTION
Perplexity is seeking energetic engineers to join our highly driven Agents engineering team. The Agents team consists of backend, full-stack, and AI/ML engineers who collaborate to build delightful agentic experiences within our Comet ecosystem and Perplexity Computer, our platform for generalized frontier intelligence. Our vision is to empower our users with AI agents that can faithfully actualize their intent, however and wherever expressed, through open-ended interactions with the world.
As An Engineer On Our Agents Team, You Will Bring AI Expertise, Sharp Product Intuition, And a Tinkerer's Mindset To Advance The Frontier Of What Agents Can Accomplish For Our Millions Of Devoted Users. You Will Work Across Applied Research And Engineering To Solve Many Open Problems In AI, Including
- Designing AI agents to navigate the digital world and perform increasingly valuable units of work for our users;
- Training action and decision models that determine, based on complex multimodal states, how to accomplish user-specified objectives;
- Providing consistently excellent experiences across desktop, mobile, headless cloud, and other environments through flexible abstractions and frictionless backgrounding;
- Developing permission architectures, payload classifiers, and other methods to implement secure-by-design agentic capabilities;
- Designing optimal data representations and modes of interaction between agents and their environments;
- and much, much more.
Responsibilities
- Drive cutting-edge AI capabilities across multiple layers of a rapidly growing product in the AI agents space.
- Develop and leverage cutting-edge AI models, infrastructure, and browser technologies to advance the capability frontier and scale those capabilities for a rapidly growing userbase.
- Ensure a high craft and quality bar, in both AI agent performance and user experience.
- Collaborate with fellow engineers, designers, product managers, data scientists, and others across the company to integrate core Perplexity functionality into our frontier agentic products and vice-versa.
- Contribute to product reliability, code quality, AI evaluation, testing, and maintenance across the broader team.
QUALIFICATIONS
- Strong foundational familiarity with the full AI product stack.
- Proficiency in Python (bonus points for TypeScript, Go, and/or Rust).
- Significant experience in at least one of the following areas:
- Context engineering and tool interfaces for frontier AI models
- Post-training and reinforcement learning (particularly for multimodal models)
- Browser technologies (CDP, Playwright, extension development, etc.)
- Strong product intuition and taste for user experience excellence.
- Comfortable working with a small, fast-moving team, must be willing to dive in and take ownership.
- A passion for shipping products that surprise and delight.
COMPENSATION RANGE
- Compensation Range: $220K - $405K
INTRODUCTION
Perplexity is seeking energetic engineers to join our highly driven Agents engineering team. The Agents team consists of backend, full-stack, and AI/ML engineers who collaborate to build delightful agentic experiences within our Comet ecosystem and Perplexity Computer, our platform for generalized frontier intelligence. Our vision is to empower our users with AI agents that can faithfully actualize their intent, however and wherever expressed, through open-ended interactions with the world.
As An Engineer On Our Agents Team, You Will Bring AI Expertise, Sharp Product Intuition, And a Tinkerer's Mindset To Advance The Frontier Of What Agents Can Accomplish For Our Millions Of Devoted Users. You Will Work Across Applied Research And Engineering To Solve Many Open Problems In AI, Including
- Designing AI agents to navigate the digital world and perform increasingly valuable units of work for our users;
- Training action and decision models that determine, based on complex multimodal states, how to accomplish user-specified objectives;
- Providing consistently excellent experiences across desktop, mobile, headless cloud, and other environments through flexible abstractions and frictionless backgrounding;
- Developing permission architectures, payload classifiers, and other methods to implement secure-by-design agentic capabilities;
- Designing optimal data representations and modes of interaction between agents and their environments;
- and much, much more.
Responsibilities
- Drive cutting-edge AI capabilities across multiple layers of a rapidly growing product in the AI agents space.
- Develop and leverage cutting-edge AI models, infrastructure, and browser technologies to advance the capability frontier and scale those capabilities for a rapidly growing userbase.
- Ensure a high craft and quality bar, in both AI agent performance and user experience.
- Collaborate with fellow engineers, designers, product managers, data scientists, and others across the company to integrate core Perplexity functionality into our frontier agentic products and vice-versa.
- Contribute to product reliability, code quality, AI evaluation, testing, and maintenance across the broader team.
QUALIFICATIONS
- Strong foundational familiarity with the full AI product stack.
- Proficiency in Python (bonus points for TypeScript, Go, and/or Rust).
- Significant experience in at least one of the following areas:
- Context engineering and tool interfaces for frontier AI models
- Post-training and reinforcement learning (particularly for multimodal models)
- Browser technologies (CDP, Playwright, extension development, etc.)
- Strong product intuition and taste for user experience excellence.
- Comfortable working with a small, fast-moving team, must be willing to dive in and take ownership.
- A passion for shipping products that surprise and delight.
COMPENSATION RANGE
- Compensation Range: $220K - $405K
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Find JobsSenior AI Software Engineer Job Market in San Francisco
Who's Hiring
- Pinterest23
- DoorDash8
- Genentech8
- Plaid7
- Scale AI7
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software125
- Artificial Intelligence15
- Science & Research14
- Social Media9
- Banking & Financial Services8
Senior AI Software Engineer Jobs in San Francisco: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a senior ai software engineer job in San Francisco?
Target the clusters where San Francisco hiring concentrates: AI research labs and model companies in SoMa, biotech-adjacent ML teams in Mission Bay, and infrastructure-focused engineering groups in the Financial District. Candidates with hands-on experience deploying large language models, building ML pipelines at scale, or contributing to open-source AI frameworks stand out in this market. Networking through SF-based AI meetups and research conferences adds a measurable edge over cold applications.
Which companies hire senior ai software engineers in San Francisco?
Employers hiring senior ai software engineers in San Francisco right now include Pinterest, DoorDash, and Genentech, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of June 2026. San Francisco's hiring mix leans heavily toward AI-native startups, foundation model labs, and large tech companies with dedicated AI divisions.
Are there remote senior ai software engineer jobs in San Francisco?
Yes, though remote access depends on the role's focus: research and applied ML engineering positions tend to be more remote-friendly than hands-on infrastructure or on-site lab work. About 45% of senior ai software engineer openings tied to San Francisco are remote or hybrid as of June 2026, reflecting how broadly distributed AI teams have become. Model evaluation, fine-tuning, and data pipeline work are the functions most commonly offered fully remote.
How can I get a senior ai software engineer job in San Francisco with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path is through AI research internships or associate machine learning engineer roles at San Francisco-based startups, where smaller teams give junior candidates broader ownership faster. Companies building vertical AI products in healthcare and fintech in Mission Bay and SoMa often hire candidates who bring strong Python, PyTorch, or Hugging Face experience even without a long resume. Contributing to visible open-source AI projects and presenting at local AI meetups accelerates recognition in this tight-knit community.
Which industries hire the most senior ai software engineers in San Francisco?
Most senior ai software engineer openings in San Francisco sit in Technology & Software, Artificial Intelligence, and Science & Research, per current listings on Migrate Mate as of June 2026. San Francisco's density of foundation model companies, enterprise SaaS platforms, and venture-backed AI startups makes it one of the most concentrated hiring markets for this role anywhere in the country.
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