Staff Engineer - Machine Learning

Location: San Mateo, CA, us

Company Description

Organizations everywhere struggle under the crushing costs and complexities of “solutions” that promise to simplify their lives. To create a better experience for their customers and employees. To help them grow. Software is a choice that can make or break a business. Create better or worse experiences. Propel or throttle growth. Business software has become a blocker instead of ways to get work done.

There’s another option. Freshworks. With a fresh vision for how the world works.

Freshworks Inc. builds uncomplicated service software that delivers exceptional employee and customer experiences. Our people-first approach to AI eliminates friction, helping businesses reduce complexity, lower cost-to-serve, and deliver faster, more human support through enterprise-grade yet easy-to-use CX and IT solutions. Nearly 75,000 companies, including Bridgestone, New Balance, Nucor, S&P Global, and Sony Music, trust Freshworks to power their Employee Experience (EX) and Customer Experience (CX) operations.

Fresh vision. Real impact. Come build it with us.

Job Description

We are seeking a Machine Learning Staff Engineer to lead the development of core backend services powering our Agentic AI Platform. In this role, you will be the primary technical driver for building reasoning-driven agents, multi-agent orchestration, and outcome-based workflows.

You will collaborate with the Principal AI Architect to bridge the gap between high-level design and scalable implementation. You will own the development of high-performance APIs and orchestration runtimes, integrating frameworks like LangChain, LangGraph, and LangSmith. This role is highly hands-on and requires a technical leader who can navigate a fast-paced environment while maintaining high engineering standards.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Backend Development

• Lead Implementation: Act as the lead engineer for agent runtime orchestration services, focusing on reasoning, planning, and tool invocation
• API & SDK Design: Own the development of robust APIs and SDKs that enable internal and external teams to build and deploy agent workflows
• State & Memory Management: Build and optimize stateful dialog management and memory services for multi-turn, context-aware agents
• Agent Communication: Implement multi-agent communication (A2A) protocols and shared context systems

System Architecture & Execution

• Microservices Leadership: Execute the transition to cloud-native, event-driven backend services using microservices or service mesh architectures
• Workflow Design: Build and manage task scheduling and long-running operations using tools like Temporal or Airflow
• Performance Optimization: Optimize LLM orchestration for performance and cost through caching, batching, and token monitoring

Integrations & Data Services

• Data Pipeline Ownership: Implement and maintain RAG pipelines and integrations with vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS)
• Telemetry Integration: Ensure all backend services support LangSmith-based evaluation and comprehensive observability

Security & Reliability

• Tenant Isolation: Implement RBAC, API authentication, and multi-tenant isolation logic
• Engineering Excellence: Set the standard for automated testing (unit, integration, load) and implement OpenTelemetry for full system visibility
• Mentorship: Provide technical guidance and code reviews for more junior backend engineers on the team

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• 6+ years of backend engineering experience
• 1-2+ years of hands-on experience in AI/ML platform development
• Expert Proficiency: Strong programming skills in Java and Python
• Framework Expertise: Hands-on experience with LangChain, LangGraph, or LangSmith
• Distributed Systems: Deep understanding of event-driven architectures, microservices, and Kubernetes
• Cloud & Data: Solid experience with AWS, Terraform, and a mix of relational (PostgreSQL) and Vector databases
• Orchestration: Practical experience with workflow engines like Temporal or Airflow and messaging systems like Kafka

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with AI-driven planning systems or dialog state tracking
• Background in enterprise security (RBAC, SSO, OAuth2)
• Experience working in a high-growth SaaS or startup environment
• Active contributions to open-source backend or AI frameworks

Additional Information

Please note this is a hybrid role with onsite expectations of 3x/week (Tues - Thurs) from our San Mateo, CA headquarters. 

The annual base salary range for this position is $211,000 - $261,000. This role is also eligible for a target bonus. 

Compensation is based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to location, experience, job-related skills, and level. 

Freshworks offers multiple options for dental, medical, vision, disability, and life insurance. Equity + ESPP, flexible PTO, flexible spending, commuter benefits, and wellness benefits are also offered. Freshworks also offers adoption and parental leave benefits. 

At Freshworks, we have fostered an environment that enables everyone to find their true potential, purpose, and passion, welcoming colleagues of all backgrounds, genders, sexual orientations, religions, and ethnicities. We are committed to providing equal opportunity and believe that diversity in the workplace creates a more vibrant, richer environment that boosts the goals of our employees, communities, and business. Fresh vision. Real impact. Come build it with us.