Staff Software Engineer / technical lead on Asana's AI Teammates Platform team, driving architecture and execution of the engine behind autonomous AI agents: tool orchestration, model evaluation, proactivity, and platform APIs. Requires deep backend systems experience plus applied AI/agentic systems exposure; based in San Francisco on a hybrid, office-centric schedule.
Compensation
$248K–$282K / yr
Location
San Francisco
Work setup
Hybrid
Seniority
Senior
Employment
Not specified
Experience
5+ years
Category
Software engineering
Posted
Skills
agentic-ai
ai
anthropic
api
asana
automation
data-science
distributed-systems
llm
microservices
model-evaluation
openai
Must have
6+ years of software engineering experience in large codebases with strong backend, systems, or reliability fundamentals
2+ years leading engineering teams or serving as a technical lead, with track record of technical strategy, timeline planning, and risk mitigation
Experience or deep interest in Applied AI / Agentic Systems (agent orchestration, tool integration, model evaluation frameworks, RAG, production LLM observability)
Quick learner, comfortable switching between contexts and codebases to unblock teammates
Deep project management experience: timeline planning, risk mitigation, stakeholder management, coordinating others' work
Passionate about mentoring engineers at all skill levels and delivering candid feedback
Nice to have
Excited to contribute to an inclusive culture with psychological safety
Full description
AI Teammates are Asana’s flagship AI innovation - autonomous agents embedded directly into enterprise workflows that reason, act, and proactively drive work forward. The AI Agents/Teammates Platform (AITP) team owns the execution engine and platform layer that makes Asana's AI Teammates and other AI Agents effective, reliable, and scalable. We build the core systems behind agentic execution: model evaluation and rollouts, proactive detection of blocked work, execution quality infrastructure, tool orchestration, and the platform APIs, events, harness and agentic memory that power AI across all of Asana engineering. Rather than building a monolithic feature, we build a composable foundation. We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to drive key architectural initiatives, design performant agentic runtime systems, and help build a reliable foundation that scales to millions of users.
Location: San Francisco, office-centric hybrid (in office Monday, Tuesday, Thursday). Most Asanas have the option to work from home on Wednesdays. Working from home on Fridays depends on the type of work you do and the teams with which you partner. If you're interviewing for this role, your recruiter will share more about the in-office requirements.
What You’ll Achieve
Drive the technical design, architecture, and end-to-end delivery of medium-to-large projects across the AI Teammates execution engine, tool orchestration, and platform APIs & events.
Architect and own composable platform foundations, harness, memory, partnering with product engineering teams to enable them to build agentic capabilities into their domains in a self-serve manner.
Design robust, extensible, and performant systems that support agentic execution, prompt-driven automation, tool integrations, and strict enterprise-grade reliability boundaries.
Solve complex technical problems across model evaluations, latency tuning, and cost optimization while balancing technical debt, execution risk, and direct business goals.
Move quickly by shipping in small increments, validating with real customer usage, evals, and metrics, and adjusting based on what the data shows rather than assumptions.
Anticipate customer and architectural risks early, breaking down complex agentic product visions into clear engineering milestones and actionable tasks.
Take end-to-end ownership of and accountability for outcomes, not just delivery, from design through production, quality, and customer impact.
Proactively identify gaps and opportunities, then propose and drive new features, platform capabilities, and re-architecture, backed by customer feedback and usage data.
Champion technical excellence, write high-leverage design docs, establish evaluation methodologies, and mentor engineers across levels to raise the engineering bar.
Senior Software Engineer, AI Teammates Platform at Asana (San Francisco) — aijobsearch
Partner closely with Product Management, Design, Data Science, and external model providers (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic) to define requirements and align technical direction.
About You
6+ years building and running production distributed systems, microservices, or complex backend architectures.
A track record as Tech Lead or AoR owner, driving multi-contributor projects from ambiguity to delivery across teams and services.
High ownership and accountability: outcomes are yours, you follow through, and you raise risks early and openly.
Product and customer-first: you start from the customer problem, use feedback and data to shape direction, and bring ideas rather than waiting for specs. You understand how architecture and model behavior affect user trust, latency, and reliability.
Bias for action grounded in reality: you move fast and decide from customer feedback, production data, and eval results, and you know when a decision needs more rigor and when it can be reversed cheaply.
Hands-on experience or deep interest in LLMs, agentic patterns, eval pipelines, RAG, or real-time streaming.
A quick learner who ramps fast on new domains, codebases, and the AI landscape.
A passion for guiding and mentoring engineers with actionable code and design feedback.
What we’ll offer
Our comprehensive compensation package plays a big part in how we recognize you for the impact you have on our path to achieving our mission. We believe that compensation should be reflective of the value you create relative to the market value of your role. To ensure pay is fair and not impacted by biases, we're committed to looking at market value which is why we check ourselves and conduct a yearly pay equity audit.
For this role, the estimated base salary range is between $202,000 - $230,000. The actual base salary will vary based on various factors, including market and individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process. The listed range above is a guideline, and the base salary range for this role may be modified.
In addition to base salary, your compensation package may include additional components such as equity, sales incentive pay (for most sales roles), and benefits. If you're interviewing for this role, speak with your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about the total compensation and benefits for this role.
We strive to provide equitable and competitive benefits packages that support our employees worldwide and include:
Mental health, wellness & fitness benefits
Career coaching & support
Inclusive family building benefits
Long-term savings or retirement plans
In-office culinary options to cater to your dietary preferences
These are just some of the benefits we offer, and benefits may vary based on role, country, and local regulations. If you're interviewing for this role, speak with your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about the total compensation and benefits for this role.
About us
Asana helps teams orchestrate their work, from small projects to strategic initiatives. Millions of teams around the world rely on Asana to achieve their most important goals, faster. Asana has been named a Top 10 Best Workplace for 5 years in a row, is Fortune's #1 Best Workplace in the Bay Area, and one of Glassdoor’s and Inc.’s Best Places to Work. After spending more than a year physically distanced, Team Asana is safely and mindfully returning to in-person collaboration, incorporating flexibility that adds hybrid elements to our office-centric culture. With 11+ offices all over the world, we are always looking for individuals who care about building technology that drives positive change in the world and a culture where everyone feels that they belong.
We believe in supporting people to do their best work and thrive, and building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive company is core to our mission. Our goal is to ensure that Asana upholds an inclusive environment where all people feel that they are equally respected and valued, whether they are applying for an open position or working at the company. We provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by law. We also comply with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and similar laws in other locations.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
#LI-Hybrid #LI-AS2
About us
Asana is a leading platform for human + AI collaboration. Millions of teams around the world rely on Asana to achieve their most important goals, faster. Asana has been named to Fortune's Best Workplaces for 7+ years and recognized by Fast Company, Forbes, and Gartner for excellence in workplace culture and innovation. We offer an exceptional office-centric culture while adopting the best elements of hybrid models to ensure that every one of our global team members can work together effortlessly. With 13+ offices all over the world, we are always looking for individuals who care about building technology that drives positive change in the world and a culture where everyone feels that they belong.
We believe in supporting people to do their best work and thrive. Our goal is to ensure that Asana upholds an environment where all people feel that they are respected and valued, whether they are applying for an open position or working at the company. We provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by law.
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