Senior Software Engineer - AI Platform Team

About the role

This role centers on developing and operating the foundational AI infrastructure that powers all artificial intelligence initiatives at Coinbase. The engineer will work on critical components such as an LLM Gateway, which manages over 60 models with features like authentication, data redaction, and cost optimization. Other responsibilities include building an AI Hub for agents and knowledge bases, and an agent and MCP runtime environment that uses microVM sandboxes for secure and governed operations.

The position also involves creating knowledge base systems that integrate various data sources and are queryable by agents, alongside developing an AI Spend Hub for financial oversight and governance of AI expenditures. A key aspect is establishing evaluation and observability tools, including an in-house LLM as a judge harness, to ensure the quality and performance of AI models and agents. The team also builds company-wide chat and low-code workflow interfaces.

Success in this role means taking ownership of significant, multi-quarter initiatives related to the AI platform's core components or applied AI agents. It requires close collaboration with various internal departments like engineering, security, legal, and finance, as well as external partners at frontier labs and major cloud providers. The engineer will also contribute to showcasing the team's work through public blog posts and talks.

The competitive salary for this position ranges from $98,000 to $162,000 USD.

Skills that matter here

• AI: The role focuses on building and operating infrastructure for large language models (LLMs) and AI agents, including applied AI for specific business functions.
• Software Development: This position requires developing robust software for critical AI platform components like gateways, runtimes, and knowledge bases, ensuring scalability and security.
• Platform Engineering: The engineer will be responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the core AI platform that other teams at Coinbase will utilize to develop their own AI solutions.

Who this role suits

• You are a senior engineer capable of leading large-scale, long-term technical projects.
• You thrive in an environment that pushes technical boundaries and demands high performance.
• You are adept at collaborating with diverse internal teams and external partners.
• You are comfortable with public communication, including writing and speaking about technical work.

From the employer

What you’ll be doing:

• LLM Gateway: one API for 60+ models across all major providers, including self-hosted open weight models, with auth, PII redaction, quotas, fallbacks, and cost optimization.
• AI Hub: single front door for agents, skills, MCP servers, knowledge bases, models, memories, and keys.
• Agent and MCP runtime: microVM sandboxes per agent run, a governed MCP gateway over 125+ servers, cross trust agent identity, tier 1 agents for code, analytics, and exec personas.
• Knowledge Bases: connect any data source, auto provision vector and markdown stores, queryable by any agent over MCP.
• AI Spend Hub: FinOps for AI, spend attribution and governance across the company.
• Evaluation and observability: in-house LLM as judge harness with full tracing and eval tooling.
• Company wide chat and low code workflow surfaces, thousands of weekly actives each.
• Applied AI: we embed with teams to build production agents, build the feedback loops that let subject matter experts refine them, and apply traditional ML including fine tuning where it beats prompting.

What we look for in you:

• Own multi quarter, high impact initiatives on the platform (gateway, runtime, knowledge, governance) or the applied agents on top.
• Partner across engineering, security, legal, finance, and product, and work directly with our partners at the frontier labs and major cloud providers.
• Public blog posts and talks showcasing the team's work.

What we offer:

• Competitive salary ranging from $98K to $162K.
• Remote work flexibility with quarterly in-person sessions.
• Equal Opportunity Employer status.