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About This Role
Traba is the AI operating layer for the industrial supply chain. We started in workforce—temp staffing, the biggest operational pain point for the manufacturing and logistics customers we serve—and used it to embed ourselves inside their daily operations and create a far better customer experience through technology. Now those same customers are pulling us beyond staffing into the broader operational workflows that run their facilities. That foundation gave us proprietary data from millions of shifts and deep enterprise relationships. But our edge is more than data: by connecting to the systems running across every facility and activating the workers already on our platform to execute against them, we are building applied AI that drives real productivity gains and transforms how the global supply chain operates at scale.
We are backed by Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and General Catalyst.
You'll build Traba's product on top of AI agents—taking frontier models and existing agents and putting them to work across our staffing marketplace to automate the pipeline that sources, vets, matches, and places workers on millions of shifts. (Our AI Agents team builds the agent platform; you apply it everywhere it creates leverage.) This is a product\-engineering role first, so you'll go where the priorities are—some quarters that's an agent that automates vetting or matching, others it's a payments flow or platform work. You'll partner with our CTO on architecture and roadmap, and build the platform the rest of the company runs on.
About You:
- An applier, not a researcher. You take frontier models and existing agents and wire them into real product across the stack—shipping reliable automation rather than owning the orchestration internals. And you don't need every task to be an AI task: you take the highest\-priority problem, model or not.
- Voracious learner. You move easily between API design, UX, and deployment infrastructure.
- Proven full\-stack builder. You have a track record of shipping scalable, performant applications from frontend interfaces to backend distributed systems.
You Will:
- Apply existing agents and frontier models across the stack—worker app, business app, ops platform, marketplace—to automate vetting, matching, and fulfillment.
- Lead frontend and backend development, mentoring other engineers.
- Architect and build core systems—real\-time matching, autonomous vetting pipelines, distributed systems, and APIs.
- Own product surfaces end to end, partnering closely with product and design.
You Have:
- 5\+ years across frontend and backend: TypeScript, React/React Native, and Node.js or Python.
- Strong with APIs, distributed systems, PostgreSQL, and messaging (Kafka or RabbitMQ).
- Hands\-on experience integrating LLMs or agents into real product—prompting, tool wiring, evals. You've shipped AI features, even if you didn't build the platform.
- A track record of shipping scalable products in fast, ambiguous, early\-stage environments.
Benefits:
- Start\-up equity
- Competitive Salary
- 100% Paid health, dental \& vision coverage
- Dinner Provided via DoorDash, free DashPass \& stocked kitchen for NY employees
- Commuter benefit
- Gympass Benefit
- ✚✚ Additional: One Medical Membership, Gympass, HSA via Optum, Talkspace, HealthAdvocate, Teledoc Health
Salary Range Details
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The compensation range for this position is set between $200,000 and $240,000, reflecting our market analysis and other relevant considerations. However, exceptions may be made for candidates with qualifications that significantly differ from those outlined in the job description.
Equal Opportunity Employer
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Traba is dedicated to promoting Equal Opportunity employment practices. We evaluate all applicants without discrimination based on race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other characteristics that are legally protected by local, state, or federal regulations. We encourage applicants from a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skill sets.
Our Values
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Dream Big \- We are on a path to change the world for the better. We create and communicate a bold direction that inspires a life\-changing vision. We don’t sacrifice long\-term value for short\-term results.
Olympian’s Work Ethic \- Changing the world never comes easy. We work harder, longer, and smarter, not just two out of three. We put everything we have on the field.
Growth Mindset \- We confront the toughest challenges head\-on and persevere. Sometimes we fail, but we brush ourselves off, adapt, learn, and push forward with resilience.
Customer Obsession \- We go the extra mile for our workers and businesses. We remain focused on delivering high\-quality products and services that solve this massive and overlooked industries’ problems
Job Applicant Privacy Notice
Compensation Range: $200K \- $240K
Salary Context
This $200K-$240K range is above the 75th percentile for AI Software Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $183K across 194 roles with salary data).
Role Details
About This Role
AI Software Engineers build the applications and systems that AI models run inside. They own the API layers, data pipelines, frontend integrations, and infrastructure that turn a model into a product users interact with. Every AI company needs engineers who can build the software around the AI.
The challenge is building reliable systems around inherently unreliable components. Models are probabilistic. They'll give different answers to the same question. They hallucinate. They're slow. They're expensive. Your job is to build an application layer that handles all of this gracefully while delivering a product that users trust and enjoy.
Across the 3,708 AI roles we're tracking, AI Software Engineer positions make up 7% of the market. At Traba, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
AI Software Engineer roles are among the most numerous in the AI job market. Every company deploying AI needs software engineers who understand AI integration patterns. The demand is broad, spanning startups to enterprises, across every industry adopting AI capabilities.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week includes: building API endpoints that serve model inference with caching and fallback logic, designing the data pipeline that feeds context to a RAG system, implementing streaming responses in the frontend, debugging a race condition in the async inference pipeline, and optimizing database queries for the vector search layer. It's full-stack engineering with AI at the center.
AI Software Engineer roles are among the most numerous in the AI job market. Every company deploying AI needs software engineers who understand AI integration patterns. The demand is broad, spanning startups to enterprises, across every industry adopting AI capabilities.
Skills Required
Full-stack engineering skills with AI integration experience. Python and TypeScript are the most common requirements. You'll need to understand API design, database architecture, and how to build reliable systems around probabilistic outputs. Experience with streaming, async processing, and caching patterns is increasingly important as real-time AI applications proliferate.
Knowledge of vector databases, embedding APIs, and LLM integration patterns (function calling, structured outputs, retry logic) differentiates AI software engineers from general software engineers. Understanding cost optimization (caching strategies, model routing, batched inference) is valuable since inference costs can dominate application economics.
Strong postings describe the product you'll be building, the AI integration patterns you'll work with, and the scale requirements. Look for companies that have existing AI features and need engineers to improve and expand them, not companies that are 'planning to add AI' someday.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI Software Engineer roles pay a median of $219,250 based on 424 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $230,000. Disclosed range: $200K to $240K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $217,500. Top-quartile compensation starts at $272,100. The 90th percentile reaches $325,000. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($300,000) and Research Engineer ($280,000). By seniority level: Entry: $120,000; Mid: $200,000; Senior: $230,000; Director: $272,150; VP: $250,000.
Traba AI Hiring
Traba has 7 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI Agent Developer, AI Software Engineer. Positions span New York, NY, US, San Francisco, CA, US. Compensation range: $200K - $300K.
Location Context
AI roles in New York pay a median of $220,000 across 1,045 tracked positions.
Career Path
Common paths into AI Software Engineer roles include Software Engineer, Full-Stack Developer, Backend Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward Staff Engineer, AI Architect, Engineering Manager.
If you're a software engineer, you're already 80% there. Learn the AI integration patterns: RAG, streaming inference, function calling, structured outputs. Build a project that demonstrates you can wrap an AI model in a production-quality application with proper error handling, caching, and user experience. That's the portfolio piece that gets you hired.
What to Expect in Interviews
Technical screens look like standard software engineering interviews with an AI twist. Expect system design questions about building reliable applications around probabilistic models: handling streaming responses, implementing retry logic for API failures, and designing caching strategies for LLM outputs. Coding rounds test standard algorithms plus practical integration patterns like async processing and rate limiting.
When evaluating opportunities: Strong postings describe the product you'll be building, the AI integration patterns you'll work with, and the scale requirements. Look for companies that have existing AI features and need engineers to improve and expand them, not companies that are 'planning to add AI' someday.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 3,708 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 102 entry-level, 1,705 mid-level, 1,469 senior, and 432 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 14% of the market (508 positions). The remaining 3,180 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $217,500. Top-quartile compensation starts at $272,100. The 90th percentile reaches $325,000. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($300,000 median, 21 roles); Research Engineer ($280,000 median, 147 roles); AI Architect ($254,798 median, 67 roles).
AI Software Engineer roles are among the most numerous in the AI job market. Every company deploying AI needs software engineers who understand AI integration patterns. The demand is broad, spanning startups to enterprises, across every industry adopting AI capabilities.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 3,708 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,605), Data Scientist (310), AI Software Engineer (259). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (102) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,705) and senior (1,469) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 432 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 14% of all AI roles (508 positions), with 3,180 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $217,500. Top-quartile roles start at $272,100, and the 90th percentile reaches $325,000. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $300,000 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $140,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,890 postings), Aws (1,103 postings), Azure (877 postings), Rag (855 postings), Gcp (631 postings), Prompt Engineering (560 postings), Pytorch (545 postings), Claude (498 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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