This role is ideal for a mid-to-senior software engineer (4+ years experience) who has pivoted into the AI/ML space. It’s a "builder" role focused on infrastruc
Work type: onsite
Location: San Francisco, CA
Salary: $245,000 – $345,000/yr
Type: Full-time
This role is ideal for a mid-to-senior software engineer (4+ years experience) who has pivoted into the AI/ML space. It’s a "builder" role focused on infrastructure rather than just research. You should have a heavy Python background and experience deploying production-grade consumer systems, specifically involving RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and LLM evaluation frameworks. The compensation is highly competitive, starting at $245k base plus equity and a 4% 401k match. While the role is listed as "Remote co-located," you must live within commuting distance of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, or New York for in-person collaboration. Notable perks include a "dogfooding" budget to buy items on the platform and a generous 16-week parental leave policy. **You might be a good fit if you...** * Have built and scaled RAG systems and LLM pipelines in a production environment. * Are proficient with the AWS ecosystem (SageMaker, Lambda, EKS) and vector/NoSQL databases. * Want to own the end-to-end infrastructure for AI features like recommendations and fraud detection. * Enjoy "startup speed" but want the stability of a high-growth, well-funded marketplace.
## 🚀 Join the Future of Commerce with Whatnot!
Whatnot is the largest livestream shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops.
As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our [values](https://www.whatnot.com/careers) and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact.
We're one of the [fastest growing marketplaces](https://a16z.com/marketplace-100/) and were recently named the [#1 Best Startup Employer in America](http://google.com/search?q=%231+forbes+startup+employer&oq=%231+forbes+startup+employer&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg9MgYIAhBFGD0yBggDEEUYQDIGCAQQRRhAMgYIBRBFGEDSAQg1NzM0ajBqMagCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our [news](https://blog.teamwhatnot.com/) and [engineering blogs](https://medium.com/whatnot-engineering) and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.
## 💻 Role
We’re looking for builders–intellectually curious, highly entrepreneurial engineers eager to shape the future of AI and ML at Whatnot. You’ll design and scale the core infrastructure that powers large language model applications across the company, working side by side with machine learning scientists to bring cutting-edge models into production and unlock entirely new product experiences. This means building systems that make AI dependable and fast at scale–from building retrieval systems to more effectively ground LLM responses in Whatnot’s business context to developing scalable LLM evaluation frameworks and human-in-the-loop feedback mechanisms.
## What you'll do:
## 👋 You
People who do well at Whatnot tend to be comfortable figuring things out as they go, biased toward action, and genuinely curious about what they're building. They care more about outcomes than credit and stay close to the product and the people using it.
As our next AI/ML Engineer you should have 4+ years of professional experience developing machine learning systems and algorithms, plus:
For US-based applicants:$245,000 - $345,000/year + benefits + stock options
The salary range may be inclusive of several levels that would be applicable to the position. Final salary will be based on a number of factors including, level, relevant prior experience, skills and expertise. This range is only inclusive of base salary, not benefits (more details below) or equity in the form of stock options.
## 🎁 Benefits
Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce.