Product Engineer, Personal AI

<p>At River AI, our mission is to create personal AI owned and shaped by each individual. To achieve this, we are rewriting the entire stack from scratch: personal hardware for local inference, bespoke training infrastructure, next-generation UIs, and frontier deep learning research.</p> <h3>Who we are</h3> <p>We are scientists, engineers, and builders from the industry's top tech companies and AI labs. We bring a proven track record of scaling consumer systems for hundreds of millions of users and architecting the pre-training infrastructure behind today's frontier models.</p> <h3>About the Role</h3> <p>We are seeking exceptional product engineers who can move seamlessly across the stack: backend systems, web and mobile surfaces, LLM-powered workflows, infrastructure, reliability, and product iteration.</p> <p>You will work close to the model, close to the user, and close to production, taking end-to-end ownership to turn new AI capabilities into software people use every day.</p> <h3>What You’ll Do</h3> <ul> <li><strong>Design, build, and launch</strong> polished, responsive user-facing product experiences across modern web and mobile stacks, partnering closely with design.</li> <li><strong>Architect high-performance backend services</strong> in Rust and Python, managing APIs, data systems, job queues, event pipelines, and distributed systems at scale.</li> <li><strong>Integrate large language models</strong> into real user workflows, managing tool use, memory, retrieval, structured outputs, latency optimization, and cost control.</li> <li><strong>Own the core infrastructure</strong> needed to run a high-scale consumer AI product, including deployment, monitoring, CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, and incident response.</li> <li><strong>Partner with research and infrastructure teams</strong> to take ambiguous ideas from prototype to production, translating new model capabilities into understandable and trustworthy product experiences.</li> </ul> <h3>Skills &amp; Qualifications</h3> <p><strong>Minimum Qualifications:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent practical industry experience.</li> <li>A proven track record of building and launching meaningful production software, ideally in consumer products, large-scale systems, or high-growth startups.</li> <li>Deep backend expertise with practical experience in Rust, Python, databases, APIs, distributed systems, and production architecture.</li> <li>Strong frontend or mobile capability with modern technologies such as TypeScript, React, React Native, Swift, or Flutter.</li> <li>Exceptional product judgment with the ability to reason backward from user needs, alongside a high degree of ownership to navigate ambiguity.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Preferred Qualifications:</strong> <em>(We encourage you to apply even if you don't meet all of these)</em></p> <ul> <li>Hands-on experience with LLM systems, including APIs, agents, tool calling, prompt iteration, eval frameworks, and inference constraints.</li> <li>Fluency with modern infrastructure and deployment platforms, including cloud environments, containers, Kubernetes, and Terraform or equivalent IaC.</li> <li>AI-native product instincts, with an understanding that LLM products require continuous evaluation, instrumentation, and close attention to real user behavior.</li> <li>Experience with systems reliability, including metrics, logs, alerts, and performance tuning for high-scale consumer products.</li> </ul> <h3>Logistics &amp; Benefits</h3> <ul> <li><strong>Location:</strong> Palo Alto, California.</li> <li><strong>Compensation:</strong> Depending on experience and skills the expected base pay is $200,000 - $420,000 USD per year, plus equity.</li> <li><strong>Benefits:</strong> Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance; unlimited PTO; and relocation assistance as needed.</li> <li><strong>Visa Sponsorship:</strong> We sponsor visas and are committed to supporting the process for the right candidate.</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p>