About the Role

Are you an entrepreneurial software engineer with a background applying AI to some novel technical challenges? This is hands-on, applied AI, not theoretical research: We need engineers fluent in implementing and experimenting with the fast-evolving open-source LLM space, ready to operate at startup velocity, on a cool, consumer-facing product that's good for the world.

What You'll Do

You’ll lead designing, developing, and deploying the core AI systems for Outgoing's personalized recommendations engine. Key opportunities include:

• Implementing & Optimizing LLM-Powered Features: Integrate and fine-tune open-weight LLMs to enhance natural language understanding, content generation, and conversational interfaces.
• Developing Advanced Ranking & Recommendation Algorithms: We've got some innovative approaches to the typical recommender system cold-start problem, helping supercharge classical ranking and information retrieval algorithms.
• Owning End-to-End Development of Scalable Platforms: Take full ownership of key features from concept to deployment, developing robust systems that ensure high performance, scalability, and reliability in a fast-paced environment. We prefer to give people a general problem space and let them run, rather than micromanaging the approach or tools they can use.
• Driving Technical Architecture & Tooling Decisions: We're an early-stage startup so there's loads of opportunity for contributing and owning strategic technical decisions like system architecture, technology stack, and platform evolution.

What We're Looking For

• 3+ years of hands-on engineering experience scaling complex, user-facing products
• Proven hands-on experience deploying custom LLMs and SLMs in production environments, ideally including fine-tuning and quantizing models models like Gemma, Llama, and/or Qwen
• Strong familiarity with ranking algorithms and recommendation systems, with experience in their design, implementation, and optimization, similar to roles at companies like Perplexity AI or Google's YouTube
• Experienced with Python (including Pydantic) and ML frameworks, with bonus points for familiarity with FastAPI, Google Cloud Platform, and vector & graph databases
• Bonus: This role is primarily working in our Python layer, but bonus points for experience with Flutter, Node.js, and Rust

Our Culture

We’re a team that values collaboration, proactive problem solving, and strong empathy. You’ll thrive here if you

• Are a proactive builder: You don’t wait for perfect specifications: you prototype, iterate, and drive solutions forward
• Embrace learning & teaching: This moment in technology is moving incredibly fast; our team wins when we stay on top of the latest trends and share learnings with each other
• Communicate with clarity: Particularly as a remote team, articulating complex technical and product concepts simply is paramount. We favor async design discussions when possible.
• Are obsessed with our users: Building a consumer product is about putting our users first above technology; we’re using tech to build something that truly delights

Work Setup

We are a remote-first team operating in the European time zone (HQ in Paris) and communicating in English. This is a full-time role with competitive salary, benefits and equity.

Who You'll Work With

Mark, Rob, Juan, JF, Ludo, Matt, Naveen, and more.

Does the idea of building AI that brings people together excite you? We’d love to hear from you!