Software Engineer – Applied AI Agent Platform

About the role

We are looking for a Software Engineer to join Cognition’s applied‑AI lab in San Francisco. You will help build the next generation of AI‑powered software agents that enable developers to write, debug and ship code at scale.

Key responsibilities

• Design and ship core agent infrastructure for long‑horizon task execution, including tool use, context management, multi‑step planning, sub‑agent orchestration and sandboxed code execution.
• Improve Windsurf, an AI‑native IDE, by contributing editor intelligence, agent‑in‑the‑loop workflows and real‑time code understanding.
• Collaborate with researchers to translate new model capabilities into product features and provide feedback that shapes training priorities.
• Own reliability and performance of systems that handle millions of agentic tasks, ensuring low latency, high availability and production‑grade correctness.
• Help define the emerging category of AI software engineering by influencing product direction and roadmap.

Required profile

• Deep experience building reliable, high‑performance distributed systems with a strong focus on correctness and failure handling.
• Product intuition and a track record of shipping tools that real users depend on.
• Comfort working with ambiguous specifications, learning quickly from results and iterating without heavy supervision.
• Ability to move fast while maintaining code quality expected by a high‑density technical team.
• Curiosity about AI agents and a desire to solve hard, open‑ended problems.

Required skills