As a Staff Software Engineer, you will architect and build high-impact systems, mentor engineers, solve complex technical challenges, and lead cross-organizational initiatives in a fast-paced AI infrastructure environment.
Unstructured is defining the standard for enterprise data transformation in the age of LLMs and generative AI. In just two years, we’ve raised over $65M from world-class investors, including Menlo Ventures, Bain Capital, Databricks, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and IBM.
Our open-source toolkit has been downloaded 52M+ times and is used by 66,000+ companies, including nearly half of the Fortune 500. We power production AI workflows across commercial and federal sectors—transforming PDFs, HTML, Word docs, images, emails, and more into AI-ready data pipelines that scale.
We’re not just building tools, we’re building the backbone of generative AI and the infrastructure that unlocks intelligence across industries.
We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer to help define and deliver Unstructured’s enterprise-level featureset. This team builds the critical features that enable large customers to securely onboard, operate, and scale on our platform identity and access controls, dashboards, usage metering, and billing. In this role, you’ll set technical direction for high-impact initiatives, mentor engineers through complex problem spaces, and ensure our enterprise foundations are robust, extensible, and built for long-term growth.
Location(s) Preferred: San Francisco, Bay Area, San Jose, Seattle, Sacramento
What You’ll Own & Drive:
Architect the Future
Own the technical vision for some of the most complex and high-impact systems we build. Drive long-term architectural strategy that enables scale, performance, and simplicity.
Be a Builder and a Multiplier
Write production-ready code and lead projects that move the needle, while also mentoring engineers across the org. Set the standard for clean design, thoughtful abstractions, and scalable patterns.
Tackle High-Stakes Problems
Solve deep technical challenges that others shy away from, think orchestration at scale, data flow optimization, and AI-first infrastructure.
Lead Cross-Org Initiatives
Align engineering, product, and go-to-market teams around a shared technical roadmap. Unblock teams, resolve architectural escalations, and help guide us through “one-way door” decisions.
What You Bring
7 to 10+ years of experience shipping production systems in high-growth, high-scale environments.
Deep technical experience in cloud-native systems (AWS/GCP/Azure), and distributed architectures.
Strong understanding of cloud security fundamentals (IAM, least privilege, secrets management, data protection) in modern distributed systems.
Hands-on experience designing and operating authentication and authorization systems, including OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, JWT, and fine-grained access control models (RBAC/ABAC).
Experience integrating with enterprise identity providers and directory services (e.g., LDAP, Active Directory, SCIM) in Kubernetes-based or cloud-native environments.
Proven track record of leading major technical initiatives, mentoring engineers, and shaping team culture.
Passion for performance, reliability, and elegant design.
Strong communication and leadership presence, you make others better.
Bonus Points
Experience in AI/ML systems, unstructured data, or real-time pipelines.Expertise in Kubernetes, IaC, or scaling SaaS infrastructure.
Strong background in security, privacy, and risk management, including token and session lifecycle management, secrets handling, auditability, data protection (encryption, masking, tokenization), and compliance with frameworks such as GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and SOC 2.
Startup DNA — you thrive in fast-moving environments and love turning ambiguity into action.
Why You’ll Love It Here
You’ll be surrounded by smart, kind, low-ego people who genuinely enjoy building together. We invest in our team, with company offsites, best-in-tech swag, and the tools you need to do your best work, wherever you’re based.
The work itself is deeply meaningful. You’ll be at the center of some of the most exciting problems in AI today - tackling meaty, novel technical challenges that directly power real production systems used by thousands of companies, including nearly half of the Fortune 500.
We support you holistically, not just at work. From day-one medical, dental, and vision coverage (plus life and disability insurance), to unlimited PTO, flexible parental leave, 401(k) options, and competitive referral incentives, we want you focused on building, growing, and staying energized for the long haul.
Most importantly, we’re scaling fast. This is a chance to join early enough to build foundational technology, influence how we operate, and help shape the future of a company defining the next era of AI infrastructure.
If that sounds like your kind of team, we’d love to meet you.
Similar Jobs
Big Data • Fintech • Mobile • Payments • Financial Services
Lead the architecture and technical strategy for Affirm’s high-volume observability platform. Design telemetry pipelines and sampling strategies, improve reliability and cost efficiency, integrate observability into AI-assisted development, and drive platform adoption across engineering teams. Remain hands-on while mentoring six engineers, leading cross-functional initiatives, establishing engineering standards, and overseeing monitoring, alerting, on-call operations, and system availability.
Top Skills:
Apache FlinkAWSKafkaKotlinKubernetesMySQLOpentelemetryPythonTerraform
Cloud • Fintech • Food • Information Technology • Software • Hospitality
Staff Software Engineer responsible for leading design and delivery of large-scale order platform capabilities spanning cloud and point-of-sale systems. The role drives architecture, performance, reliability, API design, code quality, incident response, and technical roadmap alignment. It also requires cross-team collaboration, domain expertise in order processing and synchronization, mentoring engineers, and using AI-assisted development tools to improve productivity.
Top Skills:
ClaudeCursorGraphQLJavaKotlinMcp ServersRest
Big Data • Fintech • Mobile • Payments • Financial Services
Lead frontend technical strategy for Affirm’s checkout decision orchestration systems. Design and architect scalable web applications, guide major technical initiatives, improve reliability and operational processes, establish engineering quality standards, collaborate with product, design, and analytics, and mentor engineers. The role focuses on building fast, clear, and reliable checkout experiences using modern declarative UI frameworks.
Top Skills:
JavaScriptReactTypescriptVue
What you need to know about the Los Angeles Tech Scene
Los Angeles is a global leader in entertainment, so it’s no surprise that many of the biggest players in streaming, digital media and game development call the city home. But the city boasts plenty of non-entertainment innovation as well, with tech companies spanning verticals like AI, fintech, e-commerce and biotech. With major universities like Caltech, UCLA, USC and the nearby UC Irvine, the city has a steady supply of top-flight tech and engineering talent — not counting the graduates flocking to Los Angeles from across the world to enjoy its beaches, culture and year-round temperate climate.
Key Facts About Los Angeles Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 375,800; 5.5% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: Snap, Netflix, SpaceX, Disney, Google
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, adtech, media, software, game development
- Funding Landscape: $11.6 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Strong Ventures, Fifth Wall, Upfront Ventures, Mucker Capital, Kittyhawk Ventures
- Research Centers and Universities: California Institute of Technology, UCLA, University of Southern California, UC Irvine, Pepperdine, California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, Center for Quantum Science and Engineering
