{"id":197063,"date":"2026-03-02T18:58:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/job\/eb8cdd1a-d1d1-4f13-3bd8-08d5dc096ea6-lead-ai-engineer-san-francisco-california\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T23:05:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:05:45","slug":"eb8cdd1a-d1d1-4f13-3bd8-08d5dc096ea6-lead-ai-engineer-san-francisco-california","status":"publish","type":"job_listing","link":"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/job\/eb8cdd1a-d1d1-4f13-3bd8-08d5dc096ea6-lead-ai-engineer-san-francisco-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Lead AI Engineer"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4><strong><a id=\"myCustomID\" href=\"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/job\/EB8CDD1A-D1D1-4F13-3BD8-08D5DC096EA6\">To Apply for this Job Click Here<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><strong>Lead AI Engineer <br \/> Location: <\/strong>San Francisco Bay Area | Hybrid<strong><br \/> Salary: <\/strong>$250-300k + Equity<\/p>\n<p>Join a well-funded, AI-native startup at the forefront of redefining how digital products are designed and shipped.<\/p>\n<p>This team is building a next-generation design platform where every screen is real, production-ready code. Designers work directly in the medium that ships, not static mockups, with AI deeply embedded into the workflow to accelerate iteration while preserving precision, consistency, and control.<\/p>\n<p>Backed by top-tier Bay Area investors and senior product leaders from companies including Shopify, Notion, Dropbox, Stripe, and OpenAI, the company has strong runway, a high bar for talent, and ambitious plans ahead.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re now hiring their first dedicated Lead AI Engineer to own the model layer and drive AI performance across the product.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll work directly with the CTO and founding team to define and execute the AI strategy at the model level.<\/p>\n<p>This is a hands-on, production-focused AI engineering role centered on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fine-tuning LLMs for real-world use cases<\/li>\n<li>Optimizing inference speed, cost, and reliability<\/li>\n<li>Designing and deploying custom Small Language Models (SLMs)<\/li>\n<li>Establishing evaluation, benchmarking, and observability standards<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>What You&#8217;ll Be Responsible For<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Fine-Tuning &amp; Model Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Own fine-tuning workflows (LoRA, adapters, distillation, full fine-tuning)<\/li>\n<li>Decide when to fine-tune vs optimize at the system or prompt level<\/li>\n<li>Iterate models based on production feedback<\/li>\n<li>Balance quality, latency, and cost tradeoffs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Model Optimization &amp; Performance<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Improve inference speed and throughput<\/li>\n<li>Reduce cost per request<\/li>\n<li>Enhance reliability and output consistency<\/li>\n<li>Define model evaluation and benchmarking frameworks<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Custom SLM Development<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Design and train custom SLMs for specific design-to-code workflows<\/li>\n<li>Identify when smaller models outperform larger ones<\/li>\n<li>Deploy and maintain real-time, streaming AI systems<\/li>\n<li>Support multi-step and agentic AI capabilities within the product<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>What They&#8217;re Looking For<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>5+ years of software engineering experience<\/li>\n<li>2+ years building with LLMs in production environments<\/li>\n<li>Proven hands-on fine-tuning experience (LoRA, distillation, adapters, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Experience deploying custom or specialized models<\/li>\n<li>Strong intuition around inference tradeoffs: latency, throughput, cost, reliability<\/li>\n<li>Proficiency in Python and TypeScript \/ Node.js<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Nice to have:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ONNX runtime or model optimization tooling<\/li>\n<li>Experience with orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain)<\/li>\n<li>WebSockets, Redis, or real-time streaming systems<\/li>\n<li>Background in AI-native or code-generation products<\/li>\n<li>A PhD or advanced degree is welcomed, but demonstrated production impact is the priority.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img src=https:\/\/counter.adcourier.com\/am9zaHVhcG9vcmUuODYzMTYuMTMxOTdAaGFybmhhbXNlYXJjaC5hcGxpdHJhay5jb20.gif><\/p>\n<h4><strong><a id=\"otherId\" href=\"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/job\/EB8CDD1A-D1D1-4F13-3BD8-08D5DC096EA6\">To Apply for this Job Click Here<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_promoted":"","_job_location":"San Francisco, 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