AI System Lead Engineer

We are hiring two Pod Leads to architect the AI systems behind that experience. This is a hands-on technical leadership role: you own the experience architecture, the system requirements, and the engineering bar for capabilities that ship to millions of people.

• Pod Lead, Ambient Intelligence: Design always-on, context-aware intelligence that understands the user across devices and environments, and turns that context into experiences people can trust.
• Pod Lead, Device and Application Intelligence: Design AI systems that understand how people use their device and applications, and turn that understanding into reliable, user-controlled assistance and automation.

You will work with product, design, security, and adjacent AI teams (orchestration, memory, on-device runtime) to decide what the system understands, when it acts, and how the user stays in control.

Location: Onsite in Chicago, IL or San Jose, CA

• Own the system architecture. Set the roadmap, milestones, and technical standards for Ambient Intelligence or Device and Application Intelligence.
• Design the AI experience. Define what the system understands, when it should act or stay quiet, how the user stays in control, and how failures are recovered.
• Write the requirements that make it shippable. Turn product intent into architecture and non-functional requirements: latency, privacy, reliability, resource budgets, and launch criteria.
• Hold the trust boundaries. Drive decisions across native, shared core, UI, and adjacent AI capabilities, including API contracts, ownership, and SLAs.
• Lead delivery. Mentor engineers across shared core and per-OS host work. Keep ownership clear, planning healthy, and risks escalated early.
• Make the experience coherent. Partner with product, design, security/privacy, and neighboring teams so Qira feels like one system across devices.
• Represent the system. Lead architecture, security, and launch reviews, and write decisions, risks, and operating cadence so other teams can build on your work.

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
• 2+ years leading multi-engineer delivery of a product system, from design through launch
• Experience designing and architecting AI-powered product experiences, connecting system behavior to what the user actually sees and does
• Experience defining architecture and requirements across subsystems: interfaces, trust boundaries, failure modes, and non-functional requirements
• Experience in cross-platform systems with a shared core and per-OS hosts (Windows, Android, or similar)
• Deep systems experience in at least two of: Rust, Kotlin/Android, Windows native, C/C++
• Experience applying privacy-by-design: consent, least privilege, retention and deletion, and fail-closed policy paths
• Experience owning API/ABI boundaries between native code and application hosts
• Experience delivering under launch pressure with multiple dependent teams

• End-to-end AI experience design: context, proactivity, user control, and explainability, including agentic or assistant-style products
• On-device or edge ML integration (inference consumers; model training is not required)
• Background or always-on workloads: battery, lifecycle, scheduling, and resource budgets
• Observability with structured telemetry that does not leak sensitive content
• Remote configuration and kill-switch patterns for production safety
• Consumer device, PC OEM, or mobile platform shipping experience
• Clear writing for architecture decisions, risks, and operating cadence
• Secure coding reviews and threat-aware design

Systems and AI experience leads who have already shipped cross-platform product systems and want to define how personal, on-device AI behaves. The qualifications above are the bar. Strength in AI experience architecture, on-device systems, and privacy-aware design is what makes a strong application.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any federal, state, or local protected class.