Staff Software Engineer

What we do

• Idler builds reinforcement learning environments that teach AI models to code like 0.01% engineers. Our training environments are based on real-world coding scenarios that frontier models will actually encounter.

• We've closed a multimillion-dollar contract with a leading foundation lab (the largest they've issued to date). Demand is outpacing our capacity to deliver, so we're scaling the team fast.

What you'll do

• Build agentic systems that create and QA coding environments at scale. Most of your day will be spent designing these systems to be extremely sound. A big part of our work is thinking critically about what makes a coding environment and task "good" and "fair". This requires high agency and philosophical thinking alongside technical execution.

• Concretely, you'll:

• Design and build scaleable systems that generate RL environments

• Create automated QA systems to validate environment quality and fairness

• Work directly with AI researchers at leading labs to understand what makes training data effective

• Support new product lines as we expand beyond coding environments

• Staff Engineer Responsibilities & Requirements

• Lead the process of identifying, specifying, and implementing core technology primitives that maximize the leverage of the rest of the team.

• Understand and own the technology stack end-to-end.

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.

• Lead and mentor more junior members of the team.

• You'll work with

• The founding team, a founding engineer, and a small group of engineers (we're hiring quickly). You'll have direct access to AI researchers at frontier labs.

• Tech stack

• Typescript, React, NodeJS, Postgres, Redis, Vercel, Cursor

Benefits

• Healthcare coverage, 401(k), and 15 days PTO.

• Meals, coffee, and snacks (that you will actually enjoy) covered during working days.

• Latest MacBook Pro and equipment.

• Relocation assistance available.

• Team offsites and events (we love hanging out).

• This is an in-person role in San Francisco. We're a tight-knit founding team and we play to win. Join us if you like to win too.