Software Engineer, Agent

About the role

You will design and deliver production-grade AI agents that serve as mission-critical systems driving revenue for Sierra's growth. You will own the full lifecycle of agent development from initial pilot through deployment and continuous iteration in production environments. You will partner directly with large enterprises and cutting-edge startups to solve their most pressing business challenges. You will build the future of Sierra's platform by surfacing unmet needs and prototyping new tools with cross-functional teams. You will set the standard for what it means to go beyond your role and help build the groundwork for the retail industry in the future. You will ensure that AI agents are reliable, intuitive, and central to commerce and industry workflows.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Design, build, and ship production-grade AI agents that are highly performant, reliable, and intuitive, serving as mission-critical systems that drive revenue directly to Sierra's growth.
• Own the Agent Development Life Cycle from initial pilot through deployment and continuous iteration, defining best practices for building, tuning, and evolving AI agents in production environments.
• Partner with leaders at some of the world's largest enterprises to understand their most pressing business challenges and build AI agents that transform how they operate at scale.
• Embed AI agents across the business stacks of cutting-edge startups in Silicon Valley to drive innovation and efficiency from end to end.
• Build the future of Sierra's platform by surfacing unmet needs, prototyping new tools and features, and collaborating with research, product, and platform teams.
• Abstract complex commerce systems into scalable packages that modernize order management, fulfillment, returns, and warranty systems behind large retailer ecosystems.
• Ship the full discovery-to-checkout lifecycle by building personalized shopping flows that carry a shopper from initial idea to completed order with precision and care.
• Combine transcript-aware planning and structured features to create recommendation engines that anticipate shopper intent and optimize conversion.
• Ensure AI agents remain consistent with brand voice while resolving issues, driving revenue, increasing lifetime value, and building lasting loyalty for customers.
• Work across web, app, phone, and in-store channels to support hundreds of millions of shopper and vendor interactions every year with reliability and clarity.

Requirements

• You must be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship for this role.
• You must be based in, or be willing to relocate to, the San Francisco Bay Area.
• You must have a strong background in software engineering with experience building and deploying production-grade systems.
• You must have experience with agentic systems or autonomous agents and understand their complexities in real-world environments.
• You must be comfortable working with large-scale data and distributed systems that power commerce and customer-facing applications.
• You must have a proven track record of delivering reliable features in fast-paced, high-stakes environments.
• You must be able to communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, including executives and partners.
• You must be comfortable wearing multiple hats and taking ownership of ambiguous problems with limited guidance.

Nice to have

• Experience with retail, commerce, or consumer-facing platforms.
• Background in AI product development or applied machine learning.
• Familiarity with tools for monitoring and debugging agent behavior in production.
• Experience contributing to open source or building developer-facing tools.

Practical notes

This is a full-time in-person role based in San Francisco, California. We are an equal opportunity employer and committed to building diverse teams. We may require travel for team offsites or customer visits as needed. Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States without sponsorship. The role is based in our San Francisco office, and relocation support is not available. This position reports to the Agent Engineering leadership within the Retail team.