Contrario is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to build production AI systems, focusing on marketplace intelligence, ranking systems, and retrieval infrastructure. The ideal candidate will have 3+ years of AI or ML systems experience and strong proficiency in TypeScript and Python. This is an early core engineering role with high ownership and a product-minded engineering mentality.
Key Highlights
Key Responsibilities
Technical Skills Required
Benefits & Perks
Nice to Have
Job Description
Job Description
Job Information
Applied AI Engineer
Company: Contrario
Job Details
- Location: San Francisco, CA (Onsite)
- Compensation: $150,000 – $239,997 base + 0.2% – 0.6% equity
- Employment Type: Full-Time
- Visa Sponsorship: H-1B, O-1, OPT supported
Contrario is a YC-backed AI startup scaling a marketplace platform. This is an early core engineering role focused on difficult AI product problems rather than CRUD work. The engineer will work directly with the CTO to build production AI systems, taking ownership over technical direction, product architecture, and execution speed.
Key focus areas include marketplace intelligence, ranking systems, retrieval infrastructure, recruiter routing, and automation workflows.
Key Responsibilities
- Design and implement intelligent search, retrieval, and recommendation systems.
- Build ML-driven ranking and retrieval systems using embeddings and behavioral data.
- Ship full-stack production features end-to-end.
- Develop AI-native automation workflows for sourcing and evaluation.
- Own core infrastructure including recruiter routing and candidate evaluation pipelines.
- Partner with the CTO on architecture and product evolution.
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- Frontend: React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
- Backend: NestJS, TypeScript
- Database: AWS RDS (Postgres)
- Infrastructure: AWS ECS, AWS Fargate
- AI/Data: LLMs, embeddings, vector search, retrieval pipelines, AI automation systems
- 3+ years of meaningful AI or ML systems experience.
- Strong proficiency in TypeScript and Python.
- Hands-on production experience with LLMs, vector databases, and AI workflows.
- Experience designing APIs and working with relational databases (Postgres preferred).
- High ownership mindset and ability to operate in ambiguous startup environments.
- Product-minded engineering mentality with strong UX instincts.
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- Experience building search, recommendation, or retrieval systems.
- Marketplace product experience.
- Production LLM product feature ownership.
- Background from LangChain, Palantir, ByteDance, Stripe, or startup founding/CTO roles.
- Healthcare (medical, dental, vision)
- Real equity ownership
- Gym membership / wellness stipend
- Flexible PTO
- Free lunches, dinners, snacks, and drinks
- Annual offsites
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- Chat with CTO
- Technical interview
- Take-home project
- Chat with CEO
- Work trial (onsite)
- Offer
Note: This role is fully onsite in San Francisco. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted by David Joseph & Co.
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