Principal Software Engineer

Are you excited by the opportunity to join a badass team building the future of agentic AI infrastructure? Do you thrive on solving hard problems (individually and collectively), yet are humble and hungry to learn and grow within a team on your path to greatness? Do you desire to join a close-knit pack led by SV startup veterans who can accelerate your growth 10X (compared to the corporate trajectory/culture)? If you've answered with 3 resounding "yeses," we want to meet you You will play a critical role in designing and building our inference platform for sovereign AI agents. This is not just an execution role — we’re looking for someone who thinks strategically, moves with intention, and can take ideas from concept to production with a balance of technical depth and practical decision-making. You’ll be working across the stack, applying modern technologies to develop performant, secure, and scalable systems. This is an opportunity to help shape the foundation of a platform that powers real-world AI applications at scale. Tasks Systems Architecture: Design, implement, and scale foundational backend systems and APIs that power real-time, multi-agent AI workflows. Developer Experience: Own the end-to-end developer journey by building SDKs, CLIs, and interfaces that make it easy to interact with our platform. Cross-Stack Execution: Rapidly prototype and productize features using tools like Cursor, React, and TypeScript—without sacrificing quality or scale. Technical Leadership: Guide architectural decisions, lead design reviews, and mentor engineers in best practices for distributed, high-performance systems. Collaboration: Partner with product, design, and leadership to align technical execution with company vision and user needs. Execution Ownership: Drive key projects from 0→1 with autonomy, accountability, and a strong bias for action. Requirements Experience: 4+ years in high-performance software environments, with a proven track record of shipping complex systems end-to-end. Deep Technical Expertise: Mastery of one or more systems languages (Go, Rust, Kotlin, etc.) and strong backend engineering fundamentals. Architectural Fluency: Experience designing and scaling distributed systems with performance, reliability, and observability in mind. Quality & Testing: Strong discipline around testing, CI/CD, and long-term maintainability (TDD preferred). Builder Mindset: Ability to turn ambiguity into architecture, and architecture into reliable, extensible code**.** Communication: Clear, concise communicator who can explain tradeoffs, write technical specs, and mentor junior engineers. Bonus: Experience with edge computing, real-time inference, or AI/ML-powered systems. Benefits Competitive Compensation & Meaningful Equity: We offer founder-level alignment because this is a founder-level role. High-Ownership Role: You’ll directly shape our technical direction and long-term stack architecture. Work with Top-Tier Founders & Engineers: Collaborate daily with a deeply technical, mission-driven leadership team. Build the Future of AI Infrastructure: We're not optimizing yesterday's workflows—we're inventing tomorrow's. Zero Bureaucracy, Maximum Autonomy: We stay lean, move fast, and trust you to lead. Remote-First, In-Person When It Counts: We're distributed across SF and Europe, with monthly hackathons and off-sites to align and build together. Our Hiring Process We move fast, stay transparent, and focus on real collaboration. Here’s what the process looks like: Intro Call – A quick chat to align on expectations, interests, and team fit. Technical Deep Dive – A focused conversation with our Engineering Manager to explore your systems thinking and past work. CEO Interview – A strategic discussion around vision, mindset, and long-term alignment. Reference Collection – We’ll speak with a few people you’ve worked closely with. Paid Trial (~5 Days) – A short, real-world engagement so we can see how we work together , happening in parallel with offer and terms discussion. Join CEF AI as a Principal Software Engineer to help shape the future of real-time, privacy-first AI inference. If you want to work on original systems that will define the next decade of compute - Apply now.