Staff Software Engineer (AI Evals)

STAFF SOFTWARE ENGINEER (AI EVALS)

Contract | $100–$200/hour | 20-40 hrs/week | Start ASAP

We’re looking for highly experienced software engineer to help evaluate the quality of interactions with modern coding agents such as OpenAI Codex and Claude Code.

This is not a traditional engineering role.

You won’t be writing production code. You’ll be evaluating something harder: whether the model thinks like a great engineer.

WHAT THIS ROLE ACTUALLY IS

You will assess how AI coding agents behave in real-world scenarios — focusing on:

- Whether the response makes sense

- Whether the preamble and reasoning are useful

- Whether the output reflects strong engineering judgment

- Whether the interaction feels right to an experienced developer

This role is about engineering taste — not syntax correctness.

WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING

- Evaluate AI-generated coding interactions end-to-end

- Judge whether outputs are: - Useful - Correct (at a high level) - Aligned with how a strong engineer would think

- Assess the quality of explanations and reasoning, not just code

- Distinguish between different levels of response quality (e.g. what makes something a 2 vs 4)

- Provide clear, opinionated feedback on: - What worked - What didn’t - What felt “off” or misleading

- Help define what great looks like when interacting with tools like Cursor

WHAT WE MEAN BY “TASTE”

We’re specifically looking for engineers who can answer questions like:

- Does this feel like something a strong engineer would actually say?

- Is this explanation helpful, or just technically correct?

- Is the model guiding the user well, or just dumping output?

- Would this interaction build or erode trust?

You should be comfortable making subjective but rigorous judgments.

WHO YOU ARE

- Staff / Principal-level engineer (or equivalent experience)

- Strong background in one of the below: - Go - Python - Rust - TypeScript / JavaScript

- Hands-on experience using: - OpenAI Codex - Claude Code - Cursor

- Deep familiarity with modern AI-assisted dev workflows

- Able to evaluate code without needing to fully execute or deeply review every line

- Comfortable giving direct, opinionated feedback

- High bar for what “good engineering” looks like

NICE TO HAVE

- Experience with tools like Cursor or similar AI-first IDEs

- Prior exposure to prompt design or evaluation workflows

- Experience mentoring senior engineers or defining engineering standards

ENGAGEMENT DETAILS

- Rate: $100–$200/hour

- Hours: ~20 hours+

- Duration: Through October w/possible extentions

- Start: ASAP

- Process: - Take-home evaluation exercise - Background Check - Offer