About the roleYou.com builds AI-powered search and research APIs for the agent era - the retrieval layer developers reach for when they're building agents, copilots, and AI-native products. This role sits at the seam between engineering and the developer community. You're a strong AI engineer who ships real things, and you're equally at home in an open-source repo, on a podcast, or on a conference panel.
We're looking for a builder developers trust, someone who can write a reference implementation one week and explain to a room of engineers (or a customer's CTO) why it matters the next.
What you'll do- Build reference implementations, demos, and tooling that show developers how to get real outcomes from You.com's APIs - improving agentic results, cutting inference cost and token usage, and getting strong performance out of smaller, cheaper models.
- Contribute to the open-source AI community on You.com's behalf: ship and maintain projects, and land You.com into the agent frameworks and developer tools people are already using.
- Be a credible technical voice - through code, writing, and talks - and represent You.com at hackathons, meetups, and panels. (We value this, but it isn't a weekly ask.)
- Bring the developer's perspective back into the product. You stay close to what developers actually need and act on it quickly.
- Translate between audiences: go deep on the technical how with engineers, and make the business why land with non-technical and executive stakeholders.
What we're looking for- AI engineering & systems design. You're a hands-on engineer fluent in the modern AI and agent stack. You make sound architecture decisions and can weigh domain-specific, enterprise requirements against how you actually build. You bring a public body of work - an active GitHub profile, open-source projects, or demos the community has found worth using.
- Developer-community fluency. You understand developers because you are one. You can put yourself in another technical builder's shoes and know what will genuinely matter to them. You've contributed to open source and/or organized or taken part in hackathons, meetups, or talks.
- Communication. You can go deep technically with engineers and clearly convey value to non-technical and C-level audiences. This is a true twofer - both registers, not one or the other.
Nice to have- Business acumen. You can show ROI. The things you build solve real business problems, and you can demonstrate the return to leaders - not just the cool factor.
Our salary bands are structured based on a combination of geographic tiers and internal leveling. Compensation is determined by multiple factors assessed during the interview process, with the final offer reflecting these considerations.
Salary Band
$250,000-$300,000 USD
Company Perks:- Hubs in San Francisco and New York City offering regular in-person gatherings and co-working sessions
- Flexible PTO with U.S. holidays observed and a week shutdown in December to rest and recharge*
- A competitive health insurance plan covers 100% of the policyholder and 75% for dependents*
- 12 weeks of paid parental leave in the US*
- 401k program, 3% match - vested immediately!*
- $500 work-from-home stipend to be used up to a year of your start date*
- $600 technology stipend to support a portion of our hybrid/remote team's cell phone and internet expenses*
- $1,200 per year Health & Wellness Allowance to support your personal goals*
- The chance to collaborate with a team at the forefront of AI research
*Certain perks and benefits are limited to full-time employees only
