Applied Methods
~The MetaEngineeringAI Agent Engineer

AI Agent Engineer

Engineers in this role design and deploy autonomous AI agents that solve real-world business problems across diverse industries, from finance and healthcare to infrastructure and marketing operations. They move fast across the full development lifecycle—from prototyping with frontier LLMs to shipping production systems that handle complex customer interactions, workflow automation, and operational decision-making at scale. What sets this work apart is the emphasis on reliability and observability: these engineers don't just build agents, they ensure they perform consistently in ambiguous, high-stakes environments while integrating with enterprise systems and human operators. Typically embedded in dedicated agent or agentic AI teams within product-focused AI companies, these roles sit at the intersection of platform engineering and direct impact, partnering closely with product managers, domain experts, and cross-functional stakeholders to turn loosely defined opportunities into robust, measurable business outcomes.

$ titles --canonical
AI Agent EngineerSoftware Engineer, AgentSenior Software Engineer, AgentsAgent Platform EngineerSoftware Engineer, Agentic SystemsStaff Engineer, AI Agents
Open Jobs109
Companies Hiring36
$02

Skills

What companies are looking for in this role.

$ skills --core

Designing and building end-to-end agentic AI systems that execute autonomous workflows and multi-step tasks

95%

Developing scalable distributed systems and backend infrastructure for agent runtime execution and orchestration

92%

Orchestrating multi-agent systems with tool use, planning, and decision-making capabilities

90%

Integrating large language models and AI agents with external APIs, databases, and tool ecosystems

90%

Designing and implementing evaluation frameworks, guardrails, and feedback loops for production agent systems

88%

Integrating agents with domain-specific tools and enterprise software systems

85%

Operating systems at scale with focus on reliability and fault tolerance mechanisms

85%

Optimizing agent systems for latency, reliability, cost efficiency, and production correctness

85%

Building observability, monitoring, and diagnostic systems for agent behavior and performance

85%

Implementing retrieval-augmented generation pipelines and knowledge integration systems for AI agents

85%

Building agent memory systems, state management, and context handling mechanisms

82%

Implementing sandboxing, isolation, and secure execution environments for autonomous agent operations

80%

Debugging complex systems spanning model behavior, inference stacks, and harness execution

80%

Implementing control-plane logic for agent routing, planning, and tool invocation with safety guarantees

78%
$ skills --emerging

Developing prompt engineering strategies and model selection approaches for agentic workflows

82%

Building automated workflow systems that encode structured processes as agent-executable steps

80%

Implementing agentic coding practices using AI-assisted development tools and platforms

78%

Designing experimentation frameworks and A/B testing systems for agent behavior optimization

75%

Building voice and real-time agent systems including transcription and turn-taking

65%
$ skills --soft

Owning agent projects end-to-end from initial design through production deployment and iteration

88%

Collaborating cross-functionally with product managers, researchers, and domain experts to shape agent capabilities

85%

Translating complex business requirements and use cases into reliable agent implementations

82%

Building production-grade components and reusable abstractions from early-stage prototypes

80%

Conducting user research and gathering requirements from direct customer and stakeholder engagement

78%

Identifying high-impact use cases and prioritizing automation initiatives across customer lifecycles

75%
$03

Technology

The tools and technologies that define this role.

$ tech --language
Pythonvery high
TypeScripthigh
C++moderate
Rustmoderate
$ tech --framework
LangGraphhigh
Claude Agent SDKmoderate
CrewAImoderate
OpenAI Agents SDKmoderate
Reactmoderate
Tailwindmoderate
Angularlow
$ tech --platform
OpenAIvery high
Anthropichigh
AWS Bedrockmoderate
Azuremoderate
GitHubmoderate
Google Geminimoderate
Kubernetesmoderate
Node.jsmoderate
PostgreSQLmoderate
Redismoderate
Datadoglow
Dataikulow
Kafkalow
Slacklow
Workatolow
$ tech --tool
Githigh
Claude Codemoderate
Cursormoderate
Dockermoderate
Grafanalow
Jenkinslow
Jiralow
Prometheuslow
Retoollow
Terraformlow
$ tech --concept
REST APIvery high
Async programminghigh
Microserviceshigh
Vector databaseshigh
Knowledge graphsmoderate
Multi-modal modelsmoderate
WebSocketmoderate
GraphQLlow
GraphRAGlow
gRPClow
JSON-LDlow
MCPlow
Schema.orglow
$04

Open Jobs

109 open AI Agent Engineer jobs across 36 companies.

Baseten3d
AI Engineer
San Francisco·Engineering
Multiverse4d
Staff AI Engineer
Edinburgh·Engineering
Multiverse4d
Senior AI Engineer
Edinburgh·Engineering
MongoDB4d
Software Engineer 3
Gurugram·Engineering
MongoDB5d
Senior Software Engineer, AI Framework Integrations
Gurugram·Engineering
Anthropic1w
AI Operations Engineer, Partnerships
San Francisco, CA·Engineering
Sierra1w
Software Engineer, Agent - Tech, Media & Telecom
San Francisco, CA·Engineering
Judgment Labs1w
product engineer, agent
San Francisco·Engineering
MongoDB1w
Senior Software Engineer, AI Builder Experience (ABX)
Gurugram·Engineering
Perplexity1w
Member of Technical Staff (AI Software Engineer, Agents)
San Francisco·Engineering
Sierra1w
Software Engineer, Agent - Retail
San Francisco, CA·Engineering
Serval2w
Automation Engineer
San Francisco·Engineering
Cohere2w
Applied AI Engineer, Agents & Automations
Europe·Engineering
Cognition2w
Software Engineer
San Francisco·Engineering
MongoDB2w
Software Engineer 3
United States·Engineering
Cohere3w
Forward Deployed Engineer, Agentic Platform (West Coast)
San Francisco·Engineering
Databricks3w
AI Engineer — GTM Analytics
United States·Engineering
OpenAI4w
Software Engineer, GTM Growth Engineering
San Francisco·Engineering
OpenAI1mo
Offensive Security Agent Engineer
US - Remote·Engineering
Palantir1mo
Software Engineer - Edge AI Systems
Seattle, WA·Engineering