engineering

Staff Software Engineer, AI Agent

Job San Francisco14 days ago

Hercules is seeking a Staff Software Engineer, AI Agent to shape the next generation of AI-powered software development tools. The role focuses on building, maintaining, and scaling the company's AI Context & Harness system that enables automated coding agents to produce 10x faster, higher-quality code. Responsibilities include developing and optimizing both online and offline evaluation systems for AI agents, as well as pioneering techniques to reduce costs and latency while improving accuracy. Candidates must demonstrate deep expertise in software fundamentals like system design, architecture, data modeling, and API development within large codebases. The position requires exceptional craftsmanship in writing clean, maintainable production code and proven ability to independently ship numerous customer-facing features. Key technical areas include modern context and harness engineering practices such as summarization, compression, prompt management, subagents, memory systems, async tools, and advanced retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) techniques. The ideal candidate has hands-on experience at scale in a rapidly evolving AI landscape and holds strong, evidence-based opinions on effective implementation strategies. Technical stack includes TypeScript, React, Postgres, Redis, ClickHouse, Temporal, Hono, and integration with major AI providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Engineering excellence is emphasized, with expectations for operational rigor, shipping speed, and attention to detail in production systems. Headquarters are located in San Francisco, and compensation is based on standard engineering salary ranges with additional equity and benefits.

Source: Himalayas