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 Jobs105
Companies Hiring34
$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

105 open AI Agent Engineer jobs across 34 companies.

Glean1d
Software Engineer, Agents
Bangalore, India·Engineering
Perplexity1d
Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Agentic Enterprise)
San Francisco·Engineering
Waymo2d
Staff Engineer, Agentic AI Engineering
Mountain View, CA, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA·Engineering
Sourcegraph2d
Agent Engineer [IC4]
Remote·Engineering
Perplexity4d
Member of Technical Staff (AI Software Engineer, Agents)
San Francisco·Engineering
Waymo4d
Software Engineer, ML Tools
Mountain View, CA, USA·Engineering
Sierra1w
Software Engineer, Agent
Singapore·Engineering
Sierra1w
Software Engineer, Agent - Insurance
San Francisco, CA·Engineering
Sierra1w
Software Engineer, Agent - Financial Services
San Francisco, CA·Engineering
Lovable1w
GTM Engineering Lead
Boston·Engineering
Inflection AI1w
Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems
Palo Alto, California, United States·Engineering
Inflection AI1w
Principal Research & Engineering, Realtime Voice AI
Palo Alto, California, United States·Engineering
Nebius1w
Senior Software Engineer, Agents (Agentic Search)
Israel·Engineering
Multiverse2w
Principal AI Engineer, Edinburgh
Edinburgh·Engineering
Multiverse2w
Senior AI Engineer, Edinburgh
Edinburgh·Engineering
Waymo2w
Staff Software Engineer, DUE Experience
Mountain View, CA, Seattle, WA, New York City, Los Angeles CA, United States·Engineering
Harvey2w
Automation Engineer, Customer Education
Remote·Engineering
Harvey2w
Automation Engineer, Customer Education
New York·Engineering
Harvey2w
Automation Engineer, Customer Education
San Francisco·Engineering
Sierra2w
Software Engineer, Agent (Brazilian Portuguese speaking)
San Francisco, CA·Engineering