Full Stack Software Engineer - AI Applications

Ford • Palo Alto, CA

5d • $85,400 - $232,700 • 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 keeping hands on the architecture. The IDE is a cockpit for orchestration, not a text editor. The ideal candidate is productively lazy, with a dream workflow of describing requirements, letting agents build them, verifying, shipping, and moving to the next task. They automate anything a human shouldn't be doing twice, with their biggest bottleneck being deciding what to build while AI executes the how. A strong understanding of fundamentals like data structures, algorithms, distributed systems, and networking is crucial, as is the ability to fix frameworks and identify incorrect AI output. This role requires a first-principles thinker with vision, who breaks problems to their core, questions assumptions, and rebuilds solutions. High agency and a bias for action are essential, meaning the candidate doesn't wait for perfect specs or permission but finds a path, proposes it, and moves forward, shipping v1, learning, and iterating instead of living 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.
• MS is a plus, not a substitute for shipping software.

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