Staff AI Engineer

QXO•Seattle, WA

3d•$160,000 - $288,000

About The Position

We’re looking for bold, entrepreneurial talent ready to help build something extraordinary — and reshape the future of building products distribution. QXO is a publicly traded company founded by Brad Jacobs with the goal of building the market-leading company in the building products distribution industry. On April 30, 2025, QXO completed its first acquisition: Beacon Building Products, a leading distributor in the sector. We are building a customer-focused, tech-enabled, and innovation-driven business that will scale rapidly through accretive M&A, organic growth, and greenfield expansion. Our strategy is rooted in delivering exceptional customer experiences, improving operational efficiency, and leveraging data, digital tools, and AI to modernize a historically under-digitized industry. What you'll do: As a Staff Software Engineer, AI at QXO, you will design, build, and operate intelligent agent systems that bring automation and intelligence to our platforms. You will work across model development, orchestration frameworks, and production systems to deliver reliable and scalable AI-powered services. You’ll collaborate with engineering, product, and design teams to translate complex workflows into AI agents that enhance productivity and unlock new customer experiences. This role is ideal for engineers who are highly technical, hands-on, and excited about building at the frontier of AI and commerce. You should be comfortable with fast iteration, end-to-end ownership, and working in environments with high ambiguity.

Requirements

5+ years of hands-on software engineering experience.
Strong programming skills in Python and at least one of Java, Go, or TypeScript.
Experience building applications with large language models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Llama, Mistral, etc.).
Familiarity with agent frameworks (LangChain, AutoGen, Semantic Kernel, Haystack, CrewAI) and vector databases (FAISS, Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus).
Solid knowledge of data structures, algorithms, system design, and distributed systems.
Experience deploying and maintaining systems in cloud-native environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
Strong collaboration and communication skills, with experience working cross-functionally.
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience shipping AI-powered products into production.
Knowledge of evaluation frameworks for agent reliability, bias, and safety.
Experience with event-driven architectures, APIs, or workflow automation.
Contributions to open-source AI projects (LangChain, Hugging Face, llama.cpp, etc.).
Familiarity with experimentation frameworks, personalization systems, or recommendation engines.
MS or PhD in computer science, machine learning, or related field.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and operate AI agents that integrate with APIs, data sources, and QXO’s core platforms.
Implement frameworks for orchestration, memory, and evaluation of multi-step AI reasoning.
Fine-tune and optimize large language models for task-specific use cases.
Deploy and monitor AI systems in production environments with a focus on reliability, safety, and scalability.
Collaborate with product and design teams to deliver intuitive, AI-powered user experiences.
Write clean, efficient, and testable code in support of shared libraries and platform components.
Participate in design and code reviews, continuously improving system quality and operational excellence.
Contribute to defining best practices for AI evaluation, observability, and responsible use.

Benefits

Annual performance bonus
Long term incentive (equity/stock)
401(k) with employer match
Medical, dental, and vision insurance
PTO, company holidays, and parental leave
Paid Time Off/Paid Sick Leave: Applicants can expect to accrue 15 days of paid time off during their first year (4.62 hours for every 80 hours worked) and increased accruals after five years of service.
Paid training and certifications
Legal assistance and identity protection
Pet insurance
Employee assistance program (EAP)