Staff AI Engineer, Enterprise AI
About The Position
Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies (RVT), a joint venture between Rivian and Volkswagen Group, is building technology for software-defined vehicles. The Staff AI Engineer will help productionize existing AI tools and scale their use across engineering teams, making AI a natural part of how the company builds software. The role partners with the AI team, engineering leaders across domains, and groups including DevEx, IT, Security, Compliance, and Audit. The engineer will build reusable and model-portable AI tooling, services, and developer workflows, and own prioritized tools end to end—including reliability, observability, cost, evaluation, safety, monitoring, security, privacy, and auditability. The role also includes measuring developer impact, making build-versus-buy recommendations, mentoring engineers, and introducing production-ready advances in AI for software development.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience.
- At least 8 years of software engineering experience for Staff level, with a track record of delivering production systems in enterprise environments.
- Hands-on experience building and operating AI-native developer tools, internal platforms, or CI/CD systems in production.
- Hands-on production experience with language models and agents, including tool use, context management, and evaluation, across open-source and proprietary models.
- Deep familiarity with developments in AI for software development and the judgment to distinguish production-ready approaches.
- Experience designing abstractions that keep tooling portable across model providers and frameworks.
- Experience collaborating across teams and influencing technical decisions without formal authority.
- Experience mentoring engineers and raising quality through code and design reviews.
- Working knowledge of security, privacy, and auditability for AI-enabled developer tooling.
- Strong communication skills and ability to work effectively with engineering leaders across domains.
Responsibilities
- Build reusable AI tooling across agent runtimes, evaluation, skills, plugins, and agentic loops, and help shape the roadmap through implementation.
- Design AI tooling that works across open-source and proprietary models, allowing teams to switch models without rebuilding workflows.
- Apply AI across the software development lifecycle, including code review, testing, and triage, in collaboration with engineering leaders across domains.
- Lead design reviews and build prioritized AI services and developer tools end to end, owning reliability, observability, and cost.
- Identify shared patterns across engineering groups, reuse components, and prevent duplicate work.
- Build evaluation, guardrails, and monitoring to measure quality, safety, and developer impact across models.
- Measure and report tooling impact, including cycle time, quality, and hours returned from low-value work.
- Improve the speed and affordability of AI workloads and provide build-versus-buy recommendations.
- Build security, privacy, and auditability into tools in partnership with Security, Compliance, and Audit.
- Work with DevEx, IT, and domain teams to shape AI-native development workflows.
- Mentor engineers and raise code quality, design, and engineering practices through reviews and pairing.
- Track developments in AI for software development and bring production-ready approaches into the platform.
Benefits
- Competitive base salary.
- Eligibility for the annual company performance bonus program for full-time positions; payments are discretionary and not guaranteed.
- Eligibility for equity in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), subject to board approval and applicable plan terms and vesting requirements.
- Comprehensive benefits package for full-time employees, including health coverage, retirement savings, time off, and family planning programs; offerings vary by country.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
