Senior AI Engineer

About Theo Ai

Theo Ai helps legal teams bring clarity and confidence to every legal decision. By providing objective information for faster case resolution, we’re building the world’s most accurate legal prediction engine. Founded in 2024 and incubated at Stanford’s StartX and the University of Chicago ANVC, our team brings together experienced founders, lawyers, and AI engineers from leading tech and financial institutions.

About the Team

We lead with humility, stay relentlessly curious, and care deeply about solving real problems for real customers. We move fast without cutting corners on trust or quality; we measure success by the impact we create, not the features we ship.

We’re also reimagining how products get built. Every member of our product team actively prototypes and ships using AI-powered coding tools, with engineering review before merge. This isn’t an experiment - it’s a core competitive advantage, and you’ll help shape what it becomes.

About the Role

We’re looking for a Senior AI Engineer with a strong software engineering and system design background who thrives in an AI-assisted development environment and can leverage modern AI coding tools to build and scale high-impact systems. You see AI not as a shortcut, but as a force multiplier, one that, when combined with strong engineering judgment, drives better, faster, and more reliable outcomes.

This role is a chance to be at the forefront of how AI is changing software development, not just using AI tools, but helping define how teams build with them. You’ll play a key role in shaping our technical direction, architecture, and development workflows.

You’re excited about expanding who can contribute to building software and empowering non-engineers to create meaningful product features. You thrive in a highly collaborative environment with shared ownership and are energized by working on a small, fast-moving team where your impact is immediate. You’ll help shape not just the product, but the systems, practices, and team around it.

What You'll Do

• Lead the design and development of AI-powered features across the product, including but not limited to the core legal prediction engine
• Architect scalable systems and define the technical foundation for AI-driven products and workflows
• Design and implement TypeScript-based solutions for complex, real-world legal and AI challenges
• Own and evolve backend services, APIs, and data pipelines that power AI systems
• Design and implement LLM-based systems, including context/harnessing engineering, complex data and RAG pipelines, and scalable multi-step agentic workflows
• Build and scale internal tools that enable non-technical team members to contribute production-ready code using AI
• Establish and drive best practices for AI-assisted development across both technical and non-technical contributors
• Review, test, and validate AI-assisted contributions to ensure high quality, reliability, and scalability
• Partner cross-functionally to translate ambiguous problems into robust technical solutions
• Mentor and support junior engineers, raising the overall technical bar of the team

What We’re Looking For

AI-Assisted Development Expertise

• Proficiency with modern AI coding tools (e.g., Opencode, Cursor, Claude Code, Codex CLI, or similar)
• Strong ability to prompt, evaluate, and systematically improve AI-generated code
• Proven track record of building production systems leveraging LLMs and AI-assisted workflows
• Strong engineering judgment in validating, debugging, and improving AI-assisted implementations
• Technical Foundation
• Strong proficiency in TypeScript and modern backend systems
• Deep understanding of system design, distributed systems, and scalable architectures
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, RAG pipelines, and/or agentic workflows
• Experience building and maintaining data-intensive production-grade APIs and data pipelines

Leadership & Impact

• Minimum 6 years of hands-on experience building and shipping production-grade systems and product features end-to-end, with demonstrated ownership of architecture and technical decisions.
• Experience defining architecture and technical direction in a fast-moving environment
• Interest in mentoring junior engineers and elevating team practices (no direct people management required)
• High ownership mindset with the ability to operate in ambiguous, zero-to-one environments
• Cross-departmental communication skills, capable to work actively not only with product, sales, legal, and strategy team members but also customers and end users.

Location & Authorization

• Based in or willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area
• Hybrid role with an expectation of 1–3 days per week in office
• Must be authorized to work in the United States

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation is competitive and tailored based on experience and expertise. In addition to base salary, we offer equity with standard vesting and a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k) with company match, and 20 days of paid time off. We also invest in your well-being and growth through a Culina nutrition coaching, a Future personal training subscription, a professional coaching, and a Whoop health tracking device.

To Apply

Please include examples of projects where you've successfully leveraged AI coding tools and demonstrate your TypeScript expertise.

Theo Ai is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We consider qualified applicants regardless of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, veteran status, or other protected characteristics. If you require a reasonable accommodation during the interview process, please let us know.