At River AI, our mission is to create personal AI owned and shaped by each individual. To achieve this, we are rewriting the entire stack from scratch: personal hardware for local inference, bespoke training infrastructure, next-generation UIs, and frontier deep learning research.
Who we are
We are scientists, engineers, and builders from the industry's top tech companies and AI labs. We bring a proven track record of scaling consumer systems for hundreds of millions of users and architecting the pre-training infrastructure behind today's frontier models.
About the Role
We are seeking exceptional product engineers who can move seamlessly across the stack: backend systems, web and mobile surfaces, LLM-powered workflows, infrastructure, reliability, and product iteration.
You will work close to the model, close to the user, and close to production, taking end-to-end ownership to turn new AI capabilities into software people use every day.
What You’ll Do
- Design, build, and launch polished, responsive user-facing product experiences across modern web and mobile stacks, partnering closely with design.
- Architect high-performance backend services in Rust and Python, managing APIs, data systems, job queues, event pipelines, and distributed systems at scale.
- Integrate large language models into real user workflows, managing tool use, memory, retrieval, structured outputs, latency optimization, and cost control.
- Own the core infrastructure needed to run a high-scale consumer AI product, including deployment, monitoring, CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, and incident response.
- Partner with research and infrastructure teams to take ambiguous ideas from prototype to production, translating new model capabilities into understandable and trustworthy product experiences.
Skills & Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent practical industry experience.
- A proven track record of building and launching meaningful production software, ideally in consumer products, large-scale systems, or high-growth startups.
- Deep backend expertise with practical experience in Rust, Python, databases, APIs, distributed systems, and production architecture.
- Strong frontend or mobile capability with modern technologies such as TypeScript, React, React Native, Swift, or Flutter.
- Exceptional product judgment with the ability to reason backward from user needs, alongside a high degree of ownership to navigate ambiguity.
Preferred Qualifications: (We encourage you to apply even if you don't meet all of these)
- Hands-on experience with LLM systems, including APIs, agents, tool calling, prompt iteration, eval frameworks, and inference constraints.
- Fluency with modern infrastructure and deployment platforms, including cloud environments, containers, Kubernetes, and Terraform or equivalent IaC.
- AI-native product instincts, with an understanding that LLM products require continuous evaluation, instrumentation, and close attention to real user behavior.
- Experience with systems reliability, including metrics, logs, alerts, and performance tuning for high-scale consumer products.
Logistics & Benefits
- Location: Palo Alto, California.
- Compensation: Depending on experience and skills the expected base pay is $200,000 - $420,000 USD per year, plus equity.
- Benefits: Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance; unlimited PTO; and relocation assistance as needed.
- Visa Sponsorship: We sponsor visas and are committed to supporting the process for the right candidate.
