Staff AI Agent Engineer

Staff AI Agent Engineer

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The Agentic Tribe is revolutionizing the chatbot and voice assistance landscape with Gen3, a cutting‑edge AI Agent system that pushes the boundaries of conversational AI. Gen3 is a goal‑oriented, dynamic, and truly conversational system capable of reasoning, planning, and adapting to user needs in real‑time. By leveraging a multi‑agent architecture and advanced language models, Gen3 delivers personalized and engaging user experiences, moving beyond scripted interactions to handle complex tasks and "off‑script" inquiries with ease.

About The Role

We're seeking a highly experienced and influential Staff AI Agent Engineer to drive innovation and technical leadership at the forefront of AI technology. In this role, you will design, develop, and deploy intelligent autonomous agents that leverage large language models (LLMs) to streamline operations, shape the cognitive architecture for AI‑powered applications, and guide other engineers. You will own critical, cross‑cutting initiatives, serve as a go‑to expert, and proactively engage stakeholders to influence strategy and execution.

What You Will Do (Responsibilities)

• Architect, design, and lead the development of robust, stateful, and scalable AI agents using Python and modern agentic frameworks (e. g. , Lang
  Chain, Llama
  Index).
• Strategize and oversee the integration of AI agent solutions with existing enterprise systems, databases, and third‑party APIs to create seamless, end‑to‑end workflows.
• Evaluate and select foundation models and services from third‑party providers (e. g. , Open
  AI, Anthropic, Google).
• Own and drive the entire lifecycle of AI Agent deployment, from concept to production, collaborating closely with product leadership, ML scientists, and cross‑functional teams.
• Troubleshoot, debug, and optimize complex AI systems, ensuring exceptional performance, reliability, and scalability in production environments while mentoring other engineers.
• Define, establish, and continuously improve platforms and methodologies for evaluating AI agent performance, setting key metrics, and driving iterative improvements.
• Establish and enforce best practices for documentation of development processes, architectural decisions, code, and research findings.
• Mentor and guide junior and mid‑level developers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning.

Core Technical Competencies

• Expert in LLM‑oriented system design, advanced reasoning patterns, and prompt engineering.
• Mastery of tool integration & APIs, including secure, scalable connections to external services.
• Design, build, and optimize Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines with vector databases.
• Leadership in evaluation & observability, defining monitoring frameworks for latency, accuracy, and tool usage.
• Safety & reliability, implementing defenses against prompt injection and guardrails.
• Performance optimization, managing token budgets, latency, and caching strategies.
• Planning & reasoning, building agents with long‑term memory and complex planning capabilities.
• Expertise in Python, Fast
  API, LLM SDKs, and cloud deployment (AWS/GCP/Azure) with CI/CD.

Bonus Points (Preferred Qualifications)

• Ph. D. or Master’s in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or NLP.
• Fundamental knowledge of ML concepts such as attention, embeddings, and transfer learning.
• Experience translating academic research into production‑ready code.
• Familiarity with fine‑tuning techniques (e. g. , PEFT, Lo
  RA).

The Interview Process

• Initial call with Talent Team – 15 mins.
• Interview with one member of the Hiring Team – 45 mins.
• Take‑home technical challenge.
• Technical interview with two developers – 1 hour.
• Final interview with CTO or Engineering Manager/Director – 45 mins.

Job Details

• Seniority level: Mid‑Senior level
• Employment type: Full‑time
• Job function: Engineering and Information Technology
• Industries: Software Development

About Zendesk

Zendesk builds software that improves customer relationships. We empower organizations to enhance customer engagement and understanding, offering products that are easy to use, implement, and scale. With over 100, 000 paid customer accounts worldwide, we operate across the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America. Our hybrid working model provides on‑site collaboration and remote flexibility, requiring occasional in‑office presence.

Zendesk is an equal‑opportunity employer, proud of our commitment to diversity & inclusion. We consider applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States, you can view your EEO rights here.

We endeavor to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable law. Please send accommodation requests to peopleandplaces@zendesk.com.