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About This Role
Software Engineer, Korrus Engineering (AI\-First) \- Contract
Korrus · Reports to VP, Engineering · Remote (US, Pacific overlap preferred), occasional travel for in\-person working sessions · Full\-time · Early career welcome
About Korrus
Korrus is a lighting technology company built on more than 500 patents and co\-founded by the Nobel laureate who invented the blue LED. Our consumer brand, OIO, delivers biologically aligned light, the right spectrum at the right time of day, to support how people wake, focus, and rest.
Behind the products is a real, complex company: engineering, manufacturing, a global supply chain, and the operations that tie it all together. All of it runs on software, and we are building that software in an AI\-first way. We are looking for an unusually capable early\-career engineer to help us do it.
The role
This is a broad, high\-ownership contract software engineering role. You will build a wide range of software across Korrus, inside AI\-assisted and agentic workflows that take an idea to working software far faster than a traditional process would. We are not looking for someone to pick up tickets and pass work downstream. We are looking for someone who co\-creates with our team and with AI, in real time, and is genuinely excited to deepen that practice.
You do not need years of experience. You need to be sharp, self\-directed, and eager to own real problems from day one.
How we see your first few weeks
We expect you to start with a learning phase: time to understand our systems, meet the people you will build for, and find the first problem worth solving. We would rather you scope work properly than rush to a fixed timeline. You will ship something early and grow quickly into owning problems end to end.
What you'll do
- Build software across Korrus, from internal tools to product surfaces, and take it from idea to working application.
- Co\-work directly with our engineering team inside AI\-assisted and agentic AI workflows.
- Take problems from a vague, one\-paragraph description to something that works, largely on your own.
- Partner with the people who will use what you build, understand what they actually need, and make sure it gets used.
- Work across the stack and close to the data: backends, APIs, SQL, and a clean interface when one is needed.
- Help shape how we build as our AI\-first engineering practice matures.
What we're looking for
- Solid computer science fundamentals. You understand data structures, algorithms, and how systems fit together, and you reason about a problem before you code it.
- Strong Python, and comfort being a generalist across the stack rather than boxed into one layer.
- The ability to work from ambiguity. You can get moving without a detailed spec and turn a fuzzy problem into working software.
- Genuine fluency with modern AI coding tools, and real curiosity about using AI to build faster. You want to learn more, not less.
- Comfort with mess: real\-world data, and systems that were never designed to talk to each other.
- The ability to sit with someone who is not an engineer, understand what they need, and earn their trust. You care about the outcome, not just the code.
- A bias to finish. You ship, you follow through, and you make sure the thing you built actually gets used.
- The ability to work independently and make sound decisions with limited direction.
Strong pluses
- Internships, personal projects, hackathons, or open source where you shipped something real people used.
- Experience with any of: data pipelines, workflow automation, cloud (AWS), business or ERP systems, or mobile.
- A track record of building things on your own initiative.
Logistics and compensation
- Contract engagement — full\-time hours, remote (US), with meaningful overlap with Pacific working hours.
- Occasional travel for in\-person working sessions.
- $8,000 – $9,500 per month depending on experience.
- Early career welcome — recent graduates through approximately 3–4 years of experience encouraged to apply.
To be considered
Send us your resume and, in two or three sentences, tell us about something you built end to end and what was hard about it. We are especially interested in anything you have built using AI tools. Finalists may be asked to complete a short, paid exercise so we can see how you work.
All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, or covered veteran status.
Sponsorship is not available for this position.
Salary Context
This $96K-$114K range is in the lower quartile 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 Korrus, 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. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $200,000. This role's midpoint ($105K) sits 52% below the category median. Disclosed range: $96K to $114K.
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.
Korrus AI Hiring
Korrus has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across AI Software Engineer. Based in Los Angeles, CA, US. Compensation range: $114K - $114K.
Location Context
AI roles in Los Angeles pay a median of $215,000 across 397 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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