Lead Engineer, Applied AI

About Us

Circle is building the world’s leading all-in-one platform for online communities. We make it possible for creators, coaches, educators, and businesses to bring together their audience with engaging discussions, live streams, events, chat, courses, and payments — all in one place, all under their own brand.

We’re proud to be a fully remote company of around 180 (and growing!) team members from 30+ countries around the world. We seek exceptional individuals around the world, set them up to do the best work of their lives, and in turn, create a meaningful impact in their own lives. We don't track hours, but we do manage for high expectations very closely. We collaborate across time zones, are highly async, and like to document a lot.

Twice a year, we bring the whole company together in beautiful places around the world for our company offsites. So far, we’ve hosted offsites in Turkey, Portugal, Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, Italy, Ireland, and more, with still more to come!

About the role

The Applied AI team at Circle is at the forefront of leveraging AI to drive innovation across our company.

We're looking for a Lead Engineer, Applied AI to spearhead the development of AI solutions that enhance user experiences across our platform, both internally and externally. You’ll also lead and manage the Applied AI engineering team, help organize & coordinate work, and serve as a people manager.

If you're passionate about working on real production use cases of large language models (LLMs) and want to contribute to transformative AI applications, this role is for you.

What you'll be doing

• Work autonomously on a product built in Ruby on Rails backend and React front-end.
• Ship full-stack AI projects end to end --exciting projects such as AI Agents, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Structured Extraction, internal tooling for customer-facing teams, and build infrastructure for LLM inference.
• Work closely with Circle's leaders throughout the feature design process.
• Work closely with our designers to create a world-class user experience.
• Own the end-to-end architecture and technical strategy for AI solutions.
• Hire, onboard, and lead a small team of senior engineers, supporting their growth and ensuring high-impact execution.
• Improve processes, tools, and systems to scale AI solutions across Circle.
• Optimize AI infrastructure for performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency.
• Help us stay up-to-date with the cutting-edge AI research, techniques, and tools.
• Foster a bias for action, prioritizing speed of iteration without compromising on the quality of code or user experience.

What you'll need to be successful

• 8+ years experience working as a full-stack engineer on complex web applications with significant scale (100k+ rpm, 100GB+ databases).
• Strong proficiency in at least one programming language commonly used for AI development (Python, JavaScript, TypeScript).
• Strong proficiency in Ruby on Rails, MySQL/Postgresql, ReactJS. Familiarity with both frontend and backend is necessary, but a high degree of proficiency in both is not a requirement.
• Strong understanding of NLP, ML, and LLM fundamentals - including modern LLM technologies, RAG, and prompt engineering techniques.
• Hands-on experience with AI frameworks and tools, such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face, LangChain, and vector databases.
• You have experience leading a team of engineers, especially in growth-focused environments.
• A desire to work in an environment which values speed of iteration and individual autonomy, while also embracing personal accountability and the ability to collaborate effectively as part of a dynamic team.
• Comfortable in a fast-paced environment with a certain level of ambiguity, especially when learning and picking up new technologies when projects require it.
• Strong alignment with our values, find our values on our career page if you haven’t read up on them yet.
• You are proficient in English (spoken, written, and reading) at a CEFR Level C2 / ILR Level 5.

Bonus points

• You have deployed at least one AI Agent to production, with a deep understanding of the entire development lifecycle --from initial concept to final deployment with customer feedback loops.

$160,000 - $180,000 USD per year

The cash compensation range shown is a starting point. In addition to equity, benefits and perks, your cash compensation is subject to an annual review and increase on a once per year basis.

The fun stuff

• Fully remote: work from anywhere in the world!
• Autonomy and trust to do your job: we care about outcomes over everything else.
• Paid time away: all employees are given 35 days of PTO annually. We also offer a paid sabbatical after 5 years.
• Generous U.S. benchmarked compensation and startup equity no matter where you are in the world.*
• Awesome medical coverage with 100% coverage for you and your family, or medical reimbursement options where applicable!*
• Parental leave for parents expanding their family, or just starting one.
• Home office stipend to help you get up and running.
• Learning & development stipend to help you level up your professional skills.
• Annual bonus potential for roles that don't already receive variable income or commission.
• Company retreats: Twice a year, the Circle team gets together for a fully paid company retreat in incredible places around the world! We’ve had past retreats in Colombia, Portugal, and Mexico, with more planned on the horizon.
• Check out our Careers page for more.

*Your role, location and unique circumstance may affect this.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

As a fully-remote international company, diversity is baked into our DNA. Here’s how our CEO, Sid Yadav, frames our hiring mission: “let’s find talent in underserved and under-represented corners of the world, set them up to do the best work of their lives, and in turn, change their life.” To achieve this hiring mission, we offer competitive U.S. benchmarked compensation no matter where someone’s located in the world, and we proactively seek candidates who expand representation of backgrounds, cultures and lived experiences in our teams.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Circle is an equal opportunity employer and as such, we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws. If you require any accommodations during the recruitment process, please let us know and we will work with you to meet your needs.