Staff Backend Software Engineer

Engineering · San Francisco, United States

Job description

We are a hybrid and remote-friendly culture, with our company headquarters based in San Francisco. Candidates anywhere in the US are encouraged to apply.

About Us:

Ambience is developing the most capable AI systems for healthcare and medicine. As healthcare costs soar to 17.3% of US GDP and a projected shortage of 100,000 physicians within the next decade, the need for AI is critical. Our frontline healthcare workers are overwhelmed, with only 27% of the average clinician's day spent on direct patient care.

Our vision is to equip every healthcare worker with an advanced AI co-pilot. We believe that people, augmented by AI, will enable us to deliver higher quality healthcare at a lower cost, improving the experience for everyone involved.

Headquartered in San Francisco, we have secured $100M in funding from top investors, including Kleiner Perkins, OpenAI Startup Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Optum Ventures, Human Capital, and Martin Ventures. We collaborate with leading AI experts such as Jeff Dean, Richard Socher, Pieter Abbeel, and AIX Ventures.

Join us in the endeavor of accelerating the path to safe & useful clinical super intelligence by becoming part of our community of problem solvers, technologists, clinicians, and innovators.

The Role:

As a Staff Software Engineer on the AI Platform team, you will design, build, and maintain the core infrastructure that empowers healthcare providers who use our platform every single day as they care for patients. As an OpenAI portfolio company, you will be surrounded by the leading minds in AI and exposed to the latest advancements in our field.

In the first 6 months, you’ll be responsible for setting up the foundations for long term success, investing in platform observability, reliability, and scalability. As a technical leader, you’ll be responsible for the entire lifecycle of major technical initiatives in our AI stack--from system design to deploying the code you've written. Our Engineering roles are hybrid in our SF office 3x/wk.

What You’ll Do:

  • Design and architect major product features leveraging the latest advancements in AI to deliver a magical user experience
  • Anticipate system bottlenecks and proactively re-architect key system components before they create issues for our customers
  • Lead product initiatives with high strategic value, accelerating speed of iteration while preventing accumulation of technical debt
  • Hold the codebase to a high standard, and assist in developing engineering processes that encourage shipping high quality code 

Who You Are: 

  • You have spent 5+ years working on challenging zero-to-one software engineering problems that have spanned multiple teams
  • You have extensive knowledge of how distributed systems work, have taken apart open source projects, and understand how to navigate key architectural trade-offs.
  • You’ve successfully built and evolved systems to meet production SLAs at meaningful scale
  • You’re comfortable working on a modern infrastructure stack, including common cloud providers (e.g. AWS, Azure, GCP), containers (e.g. Docker), queuing systems (e.g. RabbitMQ, Kafka), and standard database technologies (e.g. Postgres)
  • You’re willing to flex up and down the stack in order to take projects to the finish line.
  • You enjoy coaching and mentoring other engineers, but are also excited to still roll up your sleeves and write code
  • You hold teams to a high standard of quality and execution speed, as demonstrated through your prior experience as a cross-functional technical leader and/or engineering manager.
  • You have a demonstrated ability to own execution of ideas from inception through to successful outcomes
  • You’re excited to lead an ambitious, mission-aligned team that delivers breakthrough product experiences
  • You are a low-ego team player who prioritizes co-discovering the best ideas, even if they’re not your ideas
  • You value being a kind, encouraging, and supportive teammate to others
  • You thrive in environments with high levels of complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity

Not sure if you meet all of the qualifications? We don’t expect every candidate to have done everything listed above, and we're excited to work with candidates who are eager to grow and develop their skills.

Compensation: 

$170,000 - $250,000, with the addition of significant equity. 

We’ve intentionally allocated a wider range so that candidates have more flexibility to choose the desired cash/equity split that works for them. Philosophically, we lean towards generous equity grants so that our team truly gets to share in the impact they create.

Are you outside of the range? We encourage you to still apply: we take an individualized approach to ensure that compensation accounts for all of the life factors that matter for each candidate.

Being at Ambience: 

  • An opportunity to work with cutting edge AI technology, on a product that dramatically improves the quality of life for healthcare providers and the quality of care they can provide to their patients
  • Dedicated budget for personal development, including access to world class mentors, advisors, and an in-house executive coach
  • Work alongside a world-class, diverse team that is deeply mission aligned
  • Ownership over your success and the ability to significantly impact the growth of our company
  • Competitive salary and equity compensation with benefits including health, dental, and vision coverage, paid maternity/paternity leave, quarterly retreats, unlimited PTO, and a 401(k) plan

We’re fortunate to be backed by:

  • Top-tier venture firms: Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins
  • The best minds in AI: OpenAI Startup Fund, Jeff Dean, Richard Socher, Pieter Abbeel, AIX Ventures, and others
  • Healthcare industry leaders: Optum Ventures, Martin Ventures, the Frist family, Randy Parker, Anne Wojcicki, Jay Desai, Nish Bhat, Eren Bali, and others

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