Full Stack Software Engineer - AI Applications

Ford • Palo Alto, CA

8h • $85,400 - $192,000 • Onsite

About The Position

This role is for an agent orchestrator, not just a typist, who wants to be a manager of agents, handing off heavy lifting, reviewing output, and focusing on architecture. The ideal candidate is productively lazy, with a dream workflow of describing requirements, letting AI build them, verifying, shipping, and moving to the next task. They understand fundamentals like data structures, algorithms, distributed systems, and networking, and can fix frameworks or identify incorrect AI output. This is a first-principles thinker with vision, who breaks problems to their core, questions assumptions, and rebuilds solutions. The role requires high agency, meaning the candidate doesn't wait for perfect specs or permission but finds a path, proposes it, and moves forward. A bias for action is crucial, shipping v1, learning, and iterating instead of getting stuck in design review.

Requirements

• Python — deep. You write production systems, not just scripts.
• JavaScript / TypeScript — React, Node.js, or equivalent. A real frontend and a real API. Front-end strength is a big plus.
• AI engineering — LLMs, embeddings, vector stores, RAG. Comfortable building agents and evaluation pipelines. Bonus for fine-tuning or eval work.
• AI-assisted development — fluent with modern AI coding tools and agent workflows, and clear-eyed about where they help and where they don't.
• GCP — Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, GKE, BigQuery, Cloud Storage. Deployed and operated, not just tutorials.
• Databases — relational and NoSQL. You know when to use what, and why.
• APIs & microservices — designed and built RESTful services at scale.
• Git, IaC & CI/CD — Terraform, Cloud Build, or equivalent. Reproducible, version-controlled infrastructure and disciplined code review.
• BS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field. MS is a plus, not a substitute for shipping software.
• 2+ years building and deploying full-stack applications in production.
• 2+ years on cloud-native platforms (GCP preferred).
• Demonstrable experience building AI agents or applications — show us what you've built, not what you've read.

Nice To Haves

• Front-end strength is a big plus.
• Bonus for fine-tuning or eval work.

Responsibilities

• Orchestrate agents to build. Use AI as your default way of working — agents do the heavy lifting, you direct, review, and harden. You set the bar for how the team builds with AI.
• Build the AI use cases. Design and ship AI-powered applications and agents — RAG pipelines, LLM integrations, agentic workflows. Understand what's happening under the hood and make it work in production, at scale.
• Ship cloud-native systems on GCP. Design, deploy, operate. You own the architecture, the infrastructure-as-code, and the CI/CD pipeline. No throwing code over the wall.
• Connect systems that don't want to be connected. Build the integration layer across enterprise SaaS platforms. Expect messy APIs, legacy constraints, and creative problem-solving.
• Automate what shouldn't be manual. If a human repeats it, you write the code — or point an agent at it — to stop it.
• Make other engineers faster. Build the tools, agent workflows, and guardrails that remove friction. Developer productivity is a multiplier.

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year's Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Associate degree