Staff AI Software Engineer (Product)

Join brightwheel, a fast-growing startup in the early childhood education space. As a Staff AI Software Engineer, you will be responsible for driving AI-powered improvements in core workflows, designing and building cross-cutting AI services, and shaping data and system architecture. You will work with a variety of technologies, including Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, React, and AWS services. This is a unique opportunity to make a meaningful impact in the education sector while working in a dynamic and innovative environment.

• Ownership of AI-powered improvements in core workflows, from opportunity sizing to launch to iteration.
• Designing and building cross-cutting AI services that power multiple product areas, ensuring consistency and reliability.
• Leading by example in AI-augmented engineering, mentoring junior engineers, and raising the bar for quality and operations.
• Backend engineering skills in at least one modern web stack (such as Ruby on Rails, Python, Go, or Node), plus confidence with relational databases and larger datasets, from data modeling to performant queries and analytics
• Strong computer science fundamentals (e.g., data structures, algorithms, and systems design) and a generalist mindset, comfortable moving between backend, data, and UX to get the job done
• A proven track record of shipping AI-powered products to production, with concrete examples where LLMs meaningfully improved metrics like engagement, time saved, satisfaction, or retention
• Experience building modern web front-ends, ideally with React or a similar component-based framework
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with clear ownership of medium-to-large production systems from problem statement and design doc through launch and iteration
• Hands-on experience with large language models (LLMs) in real applications, including prompt and tool design, retrieval-style patterns (such as RAG), and evaluation and monitoring in production
• A track record of raising the bar for quality and operations: writing secure, testable, maintainable code; automating and simplifying dev/test/ops workflows; writing and reviewing design docs; mentoring other engineers; and contributing to hiring through interviews and feedback
• Experience designing shared platforms or frameworks (for example, internal SDKs, evaluation services, or experimentation tooling) adopted by multiple teams
• Background in vertical SaaS, ecommerce, or other operations-heavy domains
• A portfolio of personal AI projects, open-source work, or writing that shows how you think about applied AI in real-world settings
• Formal training in computer science (4-year CS degree or equivalent depth in core CS topics)