Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies are building enterprise-grade AI that teams can rely on in real development workflows. In this hybrid role in Palo Alto, California, you’ll help create reusable, production-ready AI tooling and developer services across agent runtimes, evaluation, and developer workflows, with a focus on reliability, observability, cost ownership, and secure-by-design practices.
What you’ll work on
- Build reusable AI tooling across agent runtimes, evaluation, skills, plugins, and agentic loops, and shape the roadmap through the work itself.
- Design and deliver AI tooling that works with any model, including open-source and proprietary, so teams can shift as the model landscape evolves without rebuilding workflows.
- Apply AI across the development lifecycle, from code review and testing to triage, partnering closely with engineering leaders across domains.
- Lead design reviews and end-to-end delivery of prioritized AI services and developer tools, owning reliability, observability, and cost.
- Collaborate with multiple engineering groups to identify shared patterns, reuse components, and prevent duplicated effort.
- Create evaluation, guardrails, and monitoring to measure quality, safety, and developer impact across both open-source and proprietary models.
- Track and report tooling impact using engineering outcomes such as cycle time, quality, and hours returned from low-value work.
- Make AI workloads fast and affordable, including bringing clear build-versus-buy recommendations.
- Embed security, privacy, and auditability into every tool from the start, working alongside Security, Compliance, and Audit partners.
- Work with DevEx, IT, and domain teams to shape AI-native development workflows engineers actually use.
- Mentor engineers across levels, raising the bar through reviews and pairing on code quality and engineering practice.
- Stay at the frontier of AI for software development and bring production-ready approaches into the platform.
What you bring
- BS or MS in Computer Science (or a related field), or equivalent experience.
- 8+ years (Staff) or 12+ years (Senior Staff) in software engineering, with a record of delivering production systems in enterprise environments.
- Hands-on experience building and operating AI-native developer tools, internal platforms, or CI/CD systems in production.
- Hands-on experience with language models and agents including tool use, context management, and evaluation in production across both open-source and proprietary models.
- Deep familiarity with the latest AI developments, especially for software development, plus judgment to distinguish production-ready approaches from those not yet ready.
- Experience designing abstractions that keep tooling portable across model providers and frameworks.
- Ability to collaborate across teams and influence technical decisions without formal authority.
- Experience mentoring engineers and raising quality through code reviews and design reviews.
- Working knowledge of security, privacy, and auditability for AI-enabled developer tooling.
- Strong communication skills with the ability to work effectively with engineering leaders across domains.
Compensation and benefits
- Salary: USD 206,500 - 283,900 per year
- Bonus: Annual company performance bonus program (may be eligible)
- Equity: Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), subject to board approval
- Health coverage
- Retirement savings
- Time off
- Family planning programs
Employment type: Full time · Location type: Hybrid · Department: Technology and Innovation, Big Data and AI
Equal opportunity: Rivian is committed to creating a diverse environment and is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants receive consideration without regard to protected characteristics. The hiring process includes accommodations for persons with disabilities via candidateaccommodations@rivian.com.
Candidate data privacy: Personal information may be collected, used, disclosed, and transferred as part of recruitment and employment processes, including for evaluating applications, conducting background and reference checks, ensuring security, and complying with legal and corporate governance obligations.
