# AI Engineer

**Company:** [Instabase](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/instabase)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA
**Role:** ML Engineering
**Salary:** $230k – $315k/yr
**Experience:** 8+ years
**Skills:** Go, Python, Docker, Kubernetes, LLMs, LangChain, autogen, gRPC, Kafka, RabbitMQ, Redis, webassembly, gvisor
**Posted:** 2026-07-22

> Staff AI Engineer building the Agent Harness runtime for Instabase's SuperApp: design secure sandboxed execution environments, state machines for agent orchestration, tool-calling frameworks, and guardrails connecting LLMs to production systems. Requires 8+ years distributed systems experience plus agentic AI expertise.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities

- Architect the next-generation execution runtime (Agent Harness) that drives SuperApp’s planning, reasoning, memory retention, and tool-execution loops. Build reliable state machines capable of pausing, resuming, and versioning agent trajectories.
- Design and scale highly secure, isolated, and ephemeral environments (using Docker, gVisor, WebAssembly, or microVMs) to execute agent-generated code safely without putting host infrastructure at risk.
- Build and maintain high-throughput APIs and integration layers (such as the Model Context Protocol - MCP) that connect SuperApp to external services, databases, web search utilities, and complex file processors.
- Engineer robust system-level guardrails to detect and mitigate prompt injection, defend against jailbreak attempts, and ensure strict compliance with system prompt instructions and data isolation boundaries.
- Implement advanced routing, context window pruning, and context caching strategies to optimize LLM token usage, minimize round-trip latencies, and drastically reduce the operational cost of complex agent loops.
- Write comprehensive high-level design documents, align cross-functional engineering teams on the technical roadmap, and mentor senior and mid-level software engineers across the organization.

## Requirements

- Minimum 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a proven track record of designing, scaling, and operating mission-critical distributed systems.
- 2+ years of production experience building or modifying agent execution environments, LLM orchestrators, or tool-calling frameworks (e.g., custom runtimes, LangChain, AutoGen, or similar systems).
- Expert proficiency in Go and Python. Pragmatic, deep understanding of concurrent programming, microservices, gRPC, and highly scalable API design.
- Strong experience with containerization and virtualization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes) and a solid grasp of sandboxing untrusted code execution.
- Deep familiarity with message brokers (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ), caching infrastructure (Redis), and relational/non-relational database design.
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, engineering, or equivalent practical systems engineering experience.

## Nice-to-Haves

- Prior experience developing developer tools, SDKs, or extensible plug-in architectures.
- Experience with frontend integration (React, TypeScript) to support human-in-the-loop debugging interfaces or agent visual builders.
- Experience working in high-growth, fast-paced startup environments.

## Compensation

- Base salary range: $230000 to $315000 + bonus, equity, and benefits.

## Similar roles

- [Senior AI Engineer, Agentic Data Enrichment](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/cd9cf504-6eed-41f6-95fe-6dd1b17fd649) - Baselayer - San Francisco, CA - $230k – $340k/yr
- [Applied AI Engineer, GTM Growth Engineering](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/ef2ab982-9fe0-49f7-9634-a0a5a5bfd8ab) - OpenAI - San Francisco, CA - $230k – $385k/yr
- [Technical Lead Manager](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/459dd304-2f00-4641-bc79-7f32e42e51c1) - Instabase - San Francisco, CA - $230k – $270k/yr
- [Senior Machine Learning Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/29ce42de-a923-433c-a975-ea7af29ca814) - Otter - Mountain View, CA - $230k – $265k/yr
- [Senior Research Engineer - Safety Tooling and Data](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/ca7e0d7f-a90f-4333-8437-612d086669af) - Cohere - Remote - $230k – $380k/yr

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/0a48d890-23c9-4a99-9e03-f57efeb920f8
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/0a48d890-23c9-4a99-9e03-f57efeb920f8