Applied AI Engineer

About Sunbeamsunbeam is building a fully autonomous SEO agent that plans, writes, and ships work end-to-end. An agent that ships work is one of the harder problems in applied AI right now. It requires reasoning over long horizons, executing reliably across systems, and owning outcomes that real customers can stake their growth on.We believe getting this right is a game-changer for how SEO gets done.sunbeam was built inside daydream, an AI-native SEO agency that runs SEO end-to-end for companies like Anthropic, Clay, and Replit. We are distilling what daydream learned doing the work into an autonomous agent that does the work on its own.We've raised over $20M from First Round Capital, Basis Set Ventures, WndrCo, and SOMA Capital, and are backed by leaders from Notion, Airtable, Webflow, and Dropbox, including Lenny Rachitsky and Eli Schwartz, author of Product-Led SEO.The teamYou'll work closely with a small, highly capable team across engineering and design:Shravan (CTO), formerly an Engineering Lead at Flixed and a Software Engineer at Facebook, where he worked on mass-scale web scraping for Facebook Jobs and Meta Reality Labs. Vishruth (Founding Applied AI Engineer), previously a Data Scientist at Klaviyo specializing in NLP, with a research background from Cornell. Daniel (Founding Applied AI Engineer), formerly a Data Engineer on Tesla's Autopilot team and previously Lead Data Engineer at Replit. Tom (Founding Designer), who previously led product design at Blockless and now leads our frontend efforts. How You’ll Make An ImpactAs an Applied AI Engineer at sunbeam, you’ll help build the core intelligence behind the SEO agent that powers our operating model.You’ll work on systems that translate expert SEO judgment into production-grade AI workflows that plan work, generate materials, and drive continuous execution. You’ll own problems end-to-end—from framing and design through deployment and iteration—and see your work directly drive customer outcomes.In this role, you will:Design, build, and operate LLM-driven systems that prioritize and drive SEO workEncode human expertise into structured, repeatable AI workflowsArchitect and optimize complex LLM pipelines for accuracy, reliability, and costBuild evaluation frameworks that measure quality and real-world performanceCollaborate closely with engineers, designers, and Growth Leads to integrate AI into executionShip quickly, then iterate based on feedback from production usageWork primarily across LLM-driven systems, data pipelines, and AI-enabled services, using Python, TypeScript, and C#, deployed on Google Cloud with modern foundation modelsMinimum QualificationsStrong experience building production AI or machine learning systemsHands-on experience working with LLMs beyond basic API usageSolid understanding of NLP concepts such as embeddings, retrieval, and generationExperience owning systems end-to-end, including design, implementation, and iterationComfort operating in ambiguous problem spaces and making sound technical tradeoffsPreferred QualificationsDeep expertise in NLP or applied machine learningStrong mental models of transformer-based architectures and modern language modelsExperience designing evaluation methodologies for AI systemsFamiliarity with probabilistic modeling, algorithms, or statistical inferenceExperience translating domain expertise into scalable software systemsA high bar for correctness, reliability, and operational qualityPosition LocationThis role is based in San Francisco and requires in-person collaboration five (5) days per week. We offer paid relocation for candidates outside the San Francisco Bay Area.CompensationThe base salary range for this role is $180,000–$220,000, depending on experience, along with meaningful equity.What You’ll LoveHealth coverage includes medical, dental, and vision with HSA and FSA options, plus One Medical, Talkspace, and TeladocCommuter benefit includes a monthly reimbursement to support your commute to the officeMeals on us include lunch reimbursement on in-office days, with dinner covered when you’re working latePersonal well-being includes an annual stipend for gym, fitness classes, therapy, and wellness expensesLearning and development includes an annual stipend for books, courses, and classes to support your growthTeam retreats include two company retreats per year to connect, collaborate, and resetMonthly team time includes regular dinners and outings to spend time togetherDog-friendly office (we have corgis)Compensation Range: $180K - $220K