Staff Software Engineer - AI Platform Team

Ready to do the most impactful work of your career? At Coinbase, we are uncompromising on our mission to increase economic freedom. The bar is high, the environment is intense, and we like it that way. This isn't a place for complacency, it’s a place to be pushed past your perceived limits. If you're ready to build the future of finance alongside people who refuse to settle for "good enough," you belong here. Coinbase is a remote-first, but not remote-only company. Expect to get together quarterly for intense in-person working sessions called “surges.” learn more about working at Coinbase.

As a Staff Software Engineer on the AI Platform team within the Platform group, you'll build and operate the LLM and agent infrastructure that every team at Coinbase depends on. This team owns the company's single path to large language models and the full agent lifecycle: build, deploy, run, observe, and improve. You'll lead multi-quarter technical initiatives across the platform, from gateway and runtime systems to knowledge bases and applied AI agents, directly shaping how Coinbase scales AI across the organization.

What you'll do:

• Own the architecture and delivery of core platform systems including the LLM Gateway (60+ models, auth, PII redaction, fallbacks, cost optimization), AI Hub, and agent runtime with microVM sandboxes and governed MCP gateway
• Drive the design and implementation of Knowledge Base infrastructure, connecting data sources to auto-provisioned vector and markdown stores queryable by any agent
• Lead AI FinOps capabilities including spend attribution, governance, and cost optimization across all AI workloads company-wide
• Partner across engineering, security, legal, finance, product, and external partners at frontier labs and major cloud providers to ship high-impact platform capabilities
• Build evaluation and observability tooling including LLM-as-judge harnesses, full tracing, and feedback loops that let subject matter experts refine production agents
• Shape applied AI strategy by embedding with teams to build production agents, applying fine-tuning and traditional ML where it outperforms prompting

Required Skills and Experience:

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with at least 3 years building ML/AI infrastructure, LLM systems, or distributed platform services at scale
• Demonstrated ability to lead multi-quarter, Staff-level initiatives end-to-end, from technical design through production operation, with measurable platform-wide impact
• Deep expertise in LLM orchestration patterns, agent frameworks, vector databases, and model serving infrastructure across multiple providers
• Proven track record of cross-functional partnership with security, legal, and product teams to ship governed, production-grade AI systems
• Fluency in Python and at least one systems language (Go, Rust, or C++), with production experience building APIs, microservices, and runtime environments
• Utilizes generative AI responsibly, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality.

Public Blog Posts:

• NodeSmith: AI-Driven Automation for Blockchain Node Upgrades
• Making Smarter Decisions, Faster with AI at Coinbase
• CB-GPT - The opportunity and the vision for GenAI at Coinbase
• Lessons from launching Enterprise-grade GenAI solutions at Coinbase
• AWS re:Invent 2025 - Scaling support, compliance, & productivity with conversational AI at Coinbase

Job ID#: P76979

Pay Transparency Notice: Base salary varies by location (see range below). Total compensation may also include equity and bonus eligibility, and benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401(k)). 

Annual base salary range (excluding equity and bonus):$218,025—$256,500 USD

• Application Limit: Candidates may submit a maximum of 3 applications within a 6-month period.
• Equal Opportunity Employer: Coinbase is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or genetic information. Applicants with criminal histories will be considered consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws.
• US Applicants: View Employee Rights, Know Your Rights, and E-Verify Notice of Participation.
• Accommodations: If you are an individual with a disability who needs a reasonable accommodation, email us your request and contact info at accommodations[at]coinbase.com. Need screen reading technology? Click here to download a free compatible screen reader and view the tutorial.
• Data Privacy & Arbitration: By submitting your application, you agree to our Candidate Privacy Notice. US applicants: By submitting your application, you agree to Arbitration of Disputes.