Software Engineer – Platform / Applied AI

AfterQuery is a research lab building the data infrastructure that shapes the future development of frontier AI models. Backed by YC with $25M+ ARR, AfterQuery is one of the first hires you'll make an immediate impact on — owning entire projects end-to-end. High ownership, high impact from day one.

About the Role

As a core Platform / Applied AI Engineer, you'll be critical in creating data infrastructure that will shape the future development of frontier models. You will be one of the first hires with a lot of responsibility, owning entire projects end-to-end so you can see your impact instantly. You'll help lay the groundwork for future team growth.

What You'll Own

• Design and build scalable data infrastructure for frontier AI model training and evaluation
• Build full-stack web applications using JavaScript (Next.js) and Python
• Implement serverless architecture and cloud functions for heavy data processing (GCP/AWS)
• Build storage, caching, and search systems: Redis, Elasticsearch, Kafka/RabbitMQ
• Contribute to AI research, LLM evaluation, and human-in-the-loop systems
• Ship ideas to production with full ownership

Requirements

• Must come from a top university (US/Canadian/UK), top quant firm, or have founding engineer experience
• Strong coding fundamentals in Node.js / TypeScript, Python and/or Go
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, scalability challenges, and system design
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (GCP/AWS), Kubernetes, APIs, NoSQL databases
• Ability to reason about trade-offs and balance speed vs. reliability
• Strong communication skills; bias toward ownership, curiosity, and simple solutions to complex problems
• Bonus: experience with RL environments, agentic systems, or human-in-the-loop workflows
• Visa: O-1 or OPT only (no H-1B)

Job Details

• Salary: $180,000 – $220,000
• Experience: 0–4 years
• Visa: O-1, OPT
• Location: San Francisco — in-person
• Headcount: 4 open seats
• Equity: Generous grant vested over 4 years

Benefits & Perks

• Generous equity grant vested over 4 years
• Daily lunch and dinner covered
• Free gym membership
• Health insurance