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About This Role
About Stack:
Stack is developing revolutionary AI and advanced autonomous systems designed to enhance safety, reliability, and efficiency of modern operations. Stack's autonomous technology incorporates cutting-edge advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, and cloud technologies, empowering us to create innovative solutions that address the needs and challenges of the dynamic trucking transportation industry. With decades of experience creating and deploying real world systems for demanding environments, the Stack team is dedicated to developing an autonomous solution ecosystem tailored to the trucking industry's unique demands.
About the Role:
The ML Training team is dedicated to increasing Stack's AV development velocity by accelerating machine learning iterations. Our core mission is to deliver a training system that is reliable, scalable, user-friendly and observable. We are responsible for the overall AI workflow, ranging from dataset curation to training, validation, acceleration, optimization and deployment of large-scale models that power our autonomous vehicles. In addition, this team is in charge of evangelizing best practices and frameworks among Machine Learning Engineers (MLEs) across the company.
In this Staff role, you will drive the design and development of a high-performance multi-tenant AI training platform. You will balance hands-on coding with long-term technical direction by operating across ML Platform, Infrastructure, Autonomy and Safety Evaluation teams to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles across Stack.
Responsibilities:
- Design & evolve high-performance training platform components including orchestration, training abstractions, control plane, observability and performance tuning.
- Deliver end-to-end ML model pipelines across logs processing, feature extraction, dataset schema design/storage, model configuration management, model training, and profiling/acceleration workflows.
- Analyze training infrastructure performance to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks
- Evangelize system abstractions and tooling that enable MLEs to rapidly iterate on models.
- Incorporate OSS tools to enable ML engineers self-sufficiently profile and optimize their workflows
- Promote Engineering Excellence: Maintain a high bar for engineering excellence in their own work but also set a culture of engineering excellence within the team.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
- 6+ years of experience with ML Platforms and building ML-based applications (modeling experience is a bonus).
- Strong programming skills in Python, C++ or equivalent.
- Prior experience with Lance, PyTorch, Ray Data or equivalent technologies.
- Proven track record of building scalable, reliable infra in a fast-paced environment while working with MLEs across multiple modeling teams.
- A deep understanding of design tradeoffs and ability to articulate those tradeoffs to build alignment across XFN teams.
- Experience with model training, model optimization, or large-scale data processing pipelines.
- Autonomous vehicles (AV) experience is a bonus.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to convey complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
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Please Note: Pursuant to its business activities and use of technology, Stack AV complies with all applicable U.S. national security laws, regulations, and administrative requirements, which can restrict Stack AV's ability to employ certain persons in certain positions pursuant to a range of national security-related requirements. As such, this position may be contingent upon Stack AV verifying a candidate's residence, U.S. person status, and/or citizenship status. This position may also involve working with software and technologies subject to U.S. export control regulations. Under these regulations, it may be necessary for Stack AV to obtain a U.S. government export license prior to releasing its technologies to certain persons. If Stack AV determines that a candidate's residence, U.S. person status, and/or citizenship status will require a license, prohibit the candidate from working in this position, or otherwise be subject to national security-related restrictions, Stack AV expressly reserves the right to either consider the candidate for a different position that is not subject to such restrictions, on whatever terms and conditions Stack AV shall establish in its sole discretion, or, in the alternative, decline to move forward with the candidate's application.
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 9,653 AI roles we're tracking, AI Software Engineer positions make up 5% of the market. At Stack AV, 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 $220,000 based on 1,448 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $228,700.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($253,100) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $110,408; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $228,700; Director: $272,275; VP: $235,000.
Stack AV AI Hiring
Stack AV has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across AI Software Engineer. Based in Pittsburgh, PA, US.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 6% (568 positions) offer remote work, while 9,010 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,878 roles, $221,000 median); San Francisco (2,413 roles, $264,500 median); Los Angeles (1,340 roles, $210,000 median).
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 9,653 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 193 entry-level, 4,500 mid-level, 3,455 senior, and 1,505 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (568 positions). The remaining 9,010 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($253,100 median, 57 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 419 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 51 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 9,653 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (7,301), Data Scientist (441), AI Software Engineer (438). 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 (193) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,500) and senior (3,455) 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 1,505 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (568 positions), with 9,010 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 $213,400. Top-quartile roles start at $264,230, and the 90th percentile reaches $319,400. 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 $253,100 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. 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 (1,605 postings), Aws (916 postings), Azure (724 postings), Rag (634 postings), Gcp (522 postings), Pytorch (495 postings), Kubernetes (384 postings), Claude (383 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.
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