# Software Engineer, Applied AI

**Company:** [Auctor](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/auctor)
**Location:** New York, NY
**Role:** ML Engineering
**Salary:** $175k – $290k/yr
**Skills:** Python, LLMs, Retrieval, Agents, Prompting, Orchestration, Evals, Document Understanding, Tool Use, Memory Systems
**Posted:** 2026-04-02

> Builds and improves core AI agent systems for retrieval, tool use, document understanding, and orchestration in production. Designs evals, analyzes traces, and iterates based on real enterprise workflows using Python and LLM expertise.

## Job Description

## What You'll Do
- Build and improve the core systems behind our agents across retrieval, tool use, document understanding, memory, and orchestration
- Design evals and experiments that help us understand agent quality in production
- Turn traces, failures, and user behavior into concrete product and architecture decisions
- Work closely with operations, GTM, and deployed teams to understand real workflows and where agents break down
- Evaluate models, prompts, and system designs across real enterprise tasks
- Own the loop from idea -> implementation -> measurement -> iteration

## What We're Looking For
- Strong engineering fundamentals and the ability to ship production systems
- Fluency in **Python**
- Experience building or working on LLM-powered products, agent systems, or adjacent applied AI systems
- An empirical mindset — you reach for logs, traces, experiments, and real usage before guessing
- Strong systems taste — you understand that retrieval, prompting, memory, tools, and UX interact
- High ownership and comfort working in ambiguity
- Strong opinions about what makes agent systems actually work

## Strong Candidates May Also Have
- Experience with retrieval, search, or ranking systems
- Experience designing evals, benchmarks, or feedback loops for LLM systems
- Experience building internal tools, workflow products, or operator-facing systems
- Experience in startups or other high-ownership environments

## Compensation
- $175,000-$290,000 base salary, plus equity
- Early-stage equity
- Competitive, top-of-market salary
- Catered lunch and dinners

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**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/df6cdae5-e0f7-41ee-a10f-11f4db42d654
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/df6cdae5-e0f7-41ee-a10f-11f4db42d654