Software Engineer, Developer Productivity, AI Tools

About Thinking Machines

The mission of Thinking Machines is to build AI that extends human will and judgment. We are training frontier models with Inkling, developing Tinker to let people make models their own, and crafting interfaces that broaden human-AI communication. We believe the future worth building is human, and we're hiring people who want to build it.

About the Role

We are hiring a developer productivity engineer to advance how we build software internally: safely, quickly, and with delight. The main focus are AI tools and coding agents. You’ll partner with platform, security, and product engineers to build state-of-the-art tooling for AI-assisted software development, and make our inner loop dramatically faster.

The scope of this role includes both setting up company-wide platforms and working with developers to accelerate their individual workflows.

Note: This is an "evergreen role" that we keep open on an on-going basis to express interest. We receive many applications, and there may not always be an immediate role that aligns perfectly with your experience and skills. Still, we encourage you to apply. We continuously review applications and reach out to applicants as new opportunities open. You are welcome to reapply if you get more experience, but please avoid applying more than once every 6 months. You may also find that we put up postings for singular roles for separate, project or team specific needs. In those cases, you're welcome to apply directly in addition to an evergreen role.

What You’ll Do

• Enable our researchers and engineers to leverage AI to improve coding productivity without compromising code quality
• Standardize AI coding tools, such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex. You will help configure, harden, and maintain the best tools, integrating org-wide configurations with individual preferences.
• Build secure, reproducible agent sandboxes for remote dev & CI testing.
• Set up golden-path dev environments and guardrails for secrets/PII.
• Help individual contributors develop their personalized AI-enabled workflow.
• Track tool usage, reliability, and cost.

Skills and Qualifications

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent industry experience in computer science, engineering, or similar.
• Experience developing productivity tools and best practices for large codebases.
• Ability to communicate clearly and work with researchers to build and manage a variety of internal tools.

Preferred qualifications — we encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all preferred qualifications, but at least some:

• Hands-on experience with container platforms (e.g. Docker/Kubernetes), modern CI (GitHub Actions/Buildkite), and package management tools (uv).
• Practical experience with AI coding tools and model APIs (e.g. OSS via vLLM / SGLang / TGI).
• Solid Linux/networking fundamentals; comfort with secrets management and safe egress.
• Proficiency in systems programming languages (e.g. Rust) and scripting languages (e.g. Python).

Logistics

• Location: This role is based in San Francisco, California.
• Compensation: Depending on background, skills and experience, the expected annual salary range for this position is $350,000 - $475,000 USD.
• Visa sponsorship: We sponsor visas. While we can't guarantee success for every candidate or role, if you're the right fit, we're committed to working through the visa process together.
• Benefits: Thinking Machines offers generous health, dental, and vision benefits, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, and relocation support as needed.