Applied AI Engineer Jobs in USA with Visa Sponsorship
Applied AI Engineer jobs attract strong H-1B visa sponsorship activity because the role qualifies as a specialty occupation requiring a directly related degree in computer science, AI, or a closely related field. Employers file a Labor Condition Application before sponsoring, and the H-1B annual cap and selection process apply. For detailed occupation requirements, see the O*NET profile.
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Get Access To All JobsOur Mission
As humans, there are few things more exciting than meeting someone new. At Tinder, we’re inspired by the challenge of keeping the magic of human connection alive. With tens of millions of users, hundreds of millions of downloads, 2+ billion swipes per day, 20+ million matches per day, and a presence in 190+ countries, our reach is expansive—and rapidly growing.
We work together to solve complex problems. Behind the simplicity of every match, we think deeply about human relationships, behavioral science, network economics, AI and ML, online and real-world safety, cultural nuances, loneliness, love, sex, and more.
Our Values
- Take the Lead: We don't ghost our work or each other. Just as users don't leave their matches hanging, we don't let each other down.
- Move Fast: We have a bias for action and urgency. Something that could be done tomorrow would be better if done today.
- Better Together: We keep connection at the heart of dating and at the heart of how we work. Just as our users are better when they connect with others, so are we when we collaborate.
- Real Talk: We say the hard thing the human way. Just as we ask our users to behave with kindness and candor in our community, we expect Team Tinder to do the same.
- Safety First: We act with integrity, transparency, and consistency so people feel safe—whether they're swiping, matching, or working alongside us.
- Spark Fun: We have fun to unlock creativity, fuel innovation, and help us build better experiences for daters.
The Team or Role
Agents now do real work at Tinder. They review code, security risks, accessibility, make UI improvements, help marketing teams with their workflows, and run inside engineers' coding tools and in Slack. Every one of them reaches our internal systems through our agent platform: a gateway, a growing set of MCP connectors, and the identity, policy and observability layers around them.
We're hiring the engineer who owns that platform's design and functions by closely collaborating with internal teams on real use cases. You'll make it safe by default for agents that can read sensitive data and take consequential actions, fast and reliable enough that teams want to build on it, and simple enough that the next connector or agent takes days, not weeks.
Where you’ll work:
This is a hybrid role and requires in-office collaboration three times per week in our Palo Alto, California office.
In this role, you will:
- Work closely with internal teams to build real solutions for challenges they are facing day to day.
- Own the design of the agent platform across gateway, connectors, identity, policy, guardrails, observability and cost, and write the roadmap for how it evolves.
- Design identity and delegation for agents: acting on behalf of a user, agent-owned identities for unattended jobs, short-lived scoped credentials, and every action traceable to a responsible human.
- Build access control beyond tool allowlists: per-action, per-argument and per-data-class policy, human approval for irreversible actions, and policy that's reviewable and tested.
- Build guardrails enforced at the tool boundary, not in prompts, against prompt injection through tool output, confused-deputy access, data exfiltration and over-broad scopes.
- Make agent behavior observable: traces of tool calls and decisions, audit trails investigators can use, evals that catch regressions when models or prompts change, and per-team cost attribution.
- Set the bar for connectors and third-party MCP servers: onboarding, review, versioning, sandboxing and safe defaults.
- Run the platform as production and own its on-call: latency budgets, failure modes, rate limits and quotas, kill switches and incident response.
- Partner with Security, our forward deployed engineers and platform teams, and mentor the engineers who build on and contribute to the platform.
You'll need:
- Great communication and collaboration skills, experience working with real challenges of customer
- 8+ years building backend, infrastructure or platform systems that other teams depend on, with recent hands-on work on LLM agents, tool use or MCP.
- Experience shipping identity or authorization systems: OAuth 2.0 and OIDC, token exchange or delegation, service identity, and policy models (RBAC, ABAC or relationship-based).
- An attacker's mindset about agent systems, and the ability to explain why prompt-level defenses aren't enough.
- Experience operating gateways, proxies or other services in the critical request path, including on-call, observability and incident response.
- Strong skills in Python or TypeScript, and daily use of AI coding tools with a clear sense of where they fail.
- A track record of working well with security teams and impatient internal customers, turning "no" into a safe "yes, like this."
Nice to have:
- Experience with policy engines or workload identity.
- Built or operated an LLM gateway, model router or MCP server in production.
- Familiarity with OpenTelemetry and tracing for non-deterministic systems.
- Contributions to agent identity or MCP authorization standards.
- Engineering background in application protection, identity and access management, or threat detection and incident response.
Compensation
- Salary Range: $225,000 - $265,000 a year
The salary range for this position is $225,000 - $265,000. Factors such as scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience, education/training, job-related skills, internal peer equity, as well as market and business considerations may influence base pay offered. This salary range is reflective of a position based in Palo Alto. This salary will be subject to a geographic adjustment (according to a specific city and state), if an authorization is granted to work outside of the location listed in this posting.
As a full-time employee, you’ll enjoy:
- Flexible Vacation, 10 Sick Days
- Time off to volunteer and charitable donations matched up to $15,000 annually
- Comprehensive health, vision, and dental coverage
- 100% 401(k) employer match up to 10%, Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
- 100% paid parental leave (including for non-birthing parents) and family forming benefits
- Investment in your development: mentorship through our MentorMatch program, access to 6,000+ online courses through Udemy, and an annual $3,000 stipend for your professional development
- Investment in your wellness: access to mental health support via Modern Health, paid concierge medical membership, pet insurance, fitness membership subsidy, and commuter subsidy
- Free subscription to Tinder Gold
Commitment to Inclusion
At Tinder, we don’t just accept difference, we celebrate it. We strive to build a workplace that reflects the rich diversity of our members around the world, and we value unique perspectives and backgrounds. Even if you don’t meet all the listed qualifications, we invite you to apply and show us how your skills could transfer. Tinder is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace where we welcome people of all sexes, gender identities, races, ethnicities, disabilities, and other lived experiences. Learn more here: https://www.lifeattinder.com/dei
If you require reasonable accommodation to complete a job application, pre-employment testing, or a job interview or to otherwise participate in the hiring process, please speak to your Talent Acquisition Partner directly.
Our Mission
As humans, there are few things more exciting than meeting someone new. At Tinder, we’re inspired by the challenge of keeping the magic of human connection alive. With tens of millions of users, hundreds of millions of downloads, 2+ billion swipes per day, 20+ million matches per day, and a presence in 190+ countries, our reach is expansive—and rapidly growing.
We work together to solve complex problems. Behind the simplicity of every match, we think deeply about human relationships, behavioral science, network economics, AI and ML, online and real-world safety, cultural nuances, loneliness, love, sex, and more.
Our Values
- Take the Lead: We don't ghost our work or each other. Just as users don't leave their matches hanging, we don't let each other down.
- Move Fast: We have a bias for action and urgency. Something that could be done tomorrow would be better if done today.
- Better Together: We keep connection at the heart of dating and at the heart of how we work. Just as our users are better when they connect with others, so are we when we collaborate.
- Real Talk: We say the hard thing the human way. Just as we ask our users to behave with kindness and candor in our community, we expect Team Tinder to do the same.
- Safety First: We act with integrity, transparency, and consistency so people feel safe—whether they're swiping, matching, or working alongside us.
- Spark Fun: We have fun to unlock creativity, fuel innovation, and help us build better experiences for daters.
The Team or Role
Agents now do real work at Tinder. They review code, security risks, accessibility, make UI improvements, help marketing teams with their workflows, and run inside engineers' coding tools and in Slack. Every one of them reaches our internal systems through our agent platform: a gateway, a growing set of MCP connectors, and the identity, policy and observability layers around them.
We're hiring the engineer who owns that platform's design and functions by closely collaborating with internal teams on real use cases. You'll make it safe by default for agents that can read sensitive data and take consequential actions, fast and reliable enough that teams want to build on it, and simple enough that the next connector or agent takes days, not weeks.
Where you’ll work:
This is a hybrid role and requires in-office collaboration three times per week in our Palo Alto, California office.
In this role, you will:
- Work closely with internal teams to build real solutions for challenges they are facing day to day.
- Own the design of the agent platform across gateway, connectors, identity, policy, guardrails, observability and cost, and write the roadmap for how it evolves.
- Design identity and delegation for agents: acting on behalf of a user, agent-owned identities for unattended jobs, short-lived scoped credentials, and every action traceable to a responsible human.
- Build access control beyond tool allowlists: per-action, per-argument and per-data-class policy, human approval for irreversible actions, and policy that's reviewable and tested.
- Build guardrails enforced at the tool boundary, not in prompts, against prompt injection through tool output, confused-deputy access, data exfiltration and over-broad scopes.
- Make agent behavior observable: traces of tool calls and decisions, audit trails investigators can use, evals that catch regressions when models or prompts change, and per-team cost attribution.
- Set the bar for connectors and third-party MCP servers: onboarding, review, versioning, sandboxing and safe defaults.
- Run the platform as production and own its on-call: latency budgets, failure modes, rate limits and quotas, kill switches and incident response.
- Partner with Security, our forward deployed engineers and platform teams, and mentor the engineers who build on and contribute to the platform.
You'll need:
- Great communication and collaboration skills, experience working with real challenges of customer
- 8+ years building backend, infrastructure or platform systems that other teams depend on, with recent hands-on work on LLM agents, tool use or MCP.
- Experience shipping identity or authorization systems: OAuth 2.0 and OIDC, token exchange or delegation, service identity, and policy models (RBAC, ABAC or relationship-based).
- An attacker's mindset about agent systems, and the ability to explain why prompt-level defenses aren't enough.
- Experience operating gateways, proxies or other services in the critical request path, including on-call, observability and incident response.
- Strong skills in Python or TypeScript, and daily use of AI coding tools with a clear sense of where they fail.
- A track record of working well with security teams and impatient internal customers, turning "no" into a safe "yes, like this."
Nice to have:
- Experience with policy engines or workload identity.
- Built or operated an LLM gateway, model router or MCP server in production.
- Familiarity with OpenTelemetry and tracing for non-deterministic systems.
- Contributions to agent identity or MCP authorization standards.
- Engineering background in application protection, identity and access management, or threat detection and incident response.
Compensation
- Salary Range: $225,000 - $265,000 a year
The salary range for this position is $225,000 - $265,000. Factors such as scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience, education/training, job-related skills, internal peer equity, as well as market and business considerations may influence base pay offered. This salary range is reflective of a position based in Palo Alto. This salary will be subject to a geographic adjustment (according to a specific city and state), if an authorization is granted to work outside of the location listed in this posting.
As a full-time employee, you’ll enjoy:
- Flexible Vacation, 10 Sick Days
- Time off to volunteer and charitable donations matched up to $15,000 annually
- Comprehensive health, vision, and dental coverage
- 100% 401(k) employer match up to 10%, Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
- 100% paid parental leave (including for non-birthing parents) and family forming benefits
- Investment in your development: mentorship through our MentorMatch program, access to 6,000+ online courses through Udemy, and an annual $3,000 stipend for your professional development
- Investment in your wellness: access to mental health support via Modern Health, paid concierge medical membership, pet insurance, fitness membership subsidy, and commuter subsidy
- Free subscription to Tinder Gold
Commitment to Inclusion
At Tinder, we don’t just accept difference, we celebrate it. We strive to build a workplace that reflects the rich diversity of our members around the world, and we value unique perspectives and backgrounds. Even if you don’t meet all the listed qualifications, we invite you to apply and show us how your skills could transfer. Tinder is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace where we welcome people of all sexes, gender identities, races, ethnicities, disabilities, and other lived experiences. Learn more here: https://www.lifeattinder.com/dei
If you require reasonable accommodation to complete a job application, pre-employment testing, or a job interview or to otherwise participate in the hiring process, please speak to your Talent Acquisition Partner directly.
See all 8,919+ Applied AI Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Applied AI Engineer roles.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding Visa Sponsorship as an Applied AI Engineer
Frame your degree for specialty occupation
Your bachelor's degree field must connect directly to applied AI engineering, not just broadly to technology. A degree in computer science, machine learning, or statistics maps cleanly. A business or general IT degree may trigger an RFE, so request a credential evaluation that highlights AI-relevant coursework before interviews begin.
Use O*NET to anchor your job description
Applied AI Engineer roles span a wide range of duties, and vague job descriptions draw USCIS scrutiny during H-1B adjudication. Cross-reference your offer letter's listed duties against the O*NET occupation profile to confirm the role meets specialty occupation standards before your employer files the LCA.
Target employers with active LCA filing history
Find Applied AI Engineer roles at employers who have already certified LCAs for similar positions. Migrate Mate shows verified LCA sponsorship history by role and employer, so you're applying to companies with a demonstrated track record of sponsoring this specific occupation rather than guessing.
Verify prevailing wage tier before accepting an offer
The LCA requires your offered salary to meet the DOL prevailing wage for your location and role level. Run the OFLC Wage Search using the correct wage level before you negotiate, because an underpaid offer forces your employer to refile the LCA, adding weeks of delay.
Ask about cap-exempt employer options early
Applied AI engineers at universities, nonprofit research labs, and certain government-affiliated institutions are cap-exempt, meaning your employer can file an H-1B petition at any time without competing in the annual selection process. If you've only looked at commercial tech companies, expand your search to include these organizations.
Align your start date with H-1B status rules
H-1B status is granted for up to three years initially and covers cap-subject employment starting October 1 of the fiscal year. If you're on OPT or STEM OPT, confirm your authorization end date and confirm cap-gap coverage applies so there's no unauthorized employment gap before your H-1B becomes effective.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does an Applied AI Engineer role qualify as a specialty occupation for H-1B purposes?
Yes, in most cases. USCIS defines a specialty occupation as one requiring at least a bachelor's degree in a directly related field. Applied AI engineering typically requires a degree in computer science, artificial intelligence, mathematics, or a closely related discipline. If your job description includes broad duties that don't clearly require a specific degree, your employer may receive a Request for Evidence asking for clarification.
Which visas are available to Applied AI Engineers seeking U.S. sponsorship?
The H-1B is the most common path for employer-sponsored Applied AI Engineers and requires a specialty occupation degree. Australian citizens can use the E-3 visa, which has no lottery. Chilean and Singaporean nationals may qualify for the H-1B1 visa. F-1 students can work under OPT or STEM OPT while pursuing sponsorship. Longer-term, an EB-2 or EB-3 employment-based green card is achievable once you've established tenure with a sponsoring employer.
Where can I find Applied AI Engineer jobs where employers are already willing to sponsor visas?
Migrate Mate lists Applied AI Engineer roles at employers with verified sponsorship history, so you can focus your applications on companies that have already committed to sponsoring this type of position rather than discovering their policy only after an offer.
Does a master's degree improve my chances of H-1B sponsorship as an Applied AI Engineer?
A U.S. master's degree in a qualifying STEM field gives your employer access to the H-1B advanced degree cap, which is a separate pool of 20,000 additional visas on top of the regular 65,000 cap. This doesn't guarantee selection, but it does give your petition two chances in the annual selection process rather than one, which meaningfully improves your odds.
Can I switch employers while on an H-1B as an Applied AI Engineer?
Yes. Once you're in H-1B status, you can start working for a new employer as soon as the new employer files a transfer petition with USCIS. You don't need to wait for approval before starting. Your new employer must file a fresh LCA at the prevailing wage for your new location and role level, so verify the wage requirement before accepting the new offer.
What is the prevailing wage requirement for sponsored Applied AI Engineer jobs?
U.S. employers sponsoring a visa must pay at least the prevailing wage, which is what workers in the same role, area, and experience level typically earn. The Department of Labor sets this rate to make sure companies aren't hiring foreign workers simply because they'd accept lower pay than a U.S. worker. It varies by job title, location, and experience. You can look up current prevailing wage rates for any occupation and location using the OFLC Wage Search page.