Join Hercules as a Staff Software Engineer to build and maintain AI coding agents in a fast-paced startup environment.
Posted by employer 14 hours ago
First seen on Joblaze 7 hours ago
Last verified on the company career page 7 hours ago
Skills & Technologies
What you'll build
- Build Hercules' AI coding agent
- Maintain Hercules' online evals
- Maintain Hercules' offline evals
Must have
- Strong experience in system design, architecture, data modeling, and API design
- Experience with context and harness engineering best practices
Practical constraints
- Work in US time zones
- Travel to the office regularly
AI in the day-to-day
You will have access to 1M+ repos and millions of chat messages to research novel ways to improve the AI agent.
Not disclosed in this posting: years of experience, visa sponsorship.
Benefits
Joblaze summary
In this role, the Staff Software Engineer will focus on developing and managing Hercules' AI coding agent, alongside evaluating its performance through both online and offline methods. Candidates should possess strong software engineering skills, particularly in system design and API development, while also being well-versed in context and harness engineering practices. This position is ideal for experienced engineers who have a proven track record of delivering features and navigating the complexities of AI technologies. Hercules emphasizes a fast-paced, excellence-driven work environment, encouraging innovation and rapid iteration.
Joblaze insights
- Listed today — first seen on Joblaze October 5, 2026. Last confirmed on Hercules's careers page October 5, 2026.
- Salary band is below the typical range for AI/ML roles (median ~$190,000).
- Starts at or below all 18 comparable staff ai/ml roles in United States that list TypeScript we track (median $219,000 across 9 companies). See TypeScript salary trends
- TypeScript appears in 8.6% of 269 comparable staff ai/ml roles in United States; Temporal appears in 1.1% of 269 comparable staff ai/ml roles in United States.
Quick facts
- Is the Staff Software Engineer, AI Agent role remote?
- It's hybrid — Hercules expects some on-site time in San Francisco, United States.
- What's the salary range?
- Hercules lists $100,000–$350,000 for this role.
- Where is the role based?
- Hercules is hiring for this position in San Francisco, United States.
- What's the tech stack?
- Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: AI SDK, ClickHouse, Docker, Drizzle ORM, Hono, OTEL.
- What seniority level is this role?
- Hercules targets staff-level candidates for this position.
- Is this full-time or contract?
- Full-time for this Staff Software Engineer, AI Agent role at Hercules.
From the original posting
What are we looking for?
Hercules is looking for a senior or staff level AI Context & Harness engineer to help us build the future of AI software development
What will you do?
Build, maintain, and own Hercules' AI coding agent
Build, maintain, and own Hercules' online evals and offline evals
Research novel ways to make our agent cheaper, faster, and more accurate (you will have access to 1M+ repos and millions of chat messages)
We expect candidates to be incredibly strong across all of the following areas:
Software fundamentals: system design, architecture, data modeling, and API design
Code and codebase quality: write clean, maintainable code. Work effectively in monorepos
Product/design sense: track record of independently shipping lots of features to customers
Context and harness engineering skills: strong experience with the most up to date context and harness engineering best practices like summarization/compression, prompting, prompt caching, subagents, memory, dreaming, context management, tools, async tools, deferred tools, RAG, skills, etc
Yes, we know this industry is evolving rapidly and the "best practices" change every week, but yes, we are still actively looking for someone who has wrestled with these challenges at scale and has strong opinions about what works and what doesn't
Our core stack: TypeScript, React, containers, Postgres, Redis, and Temporal
AI coding: able to truly 10x your workflow by being on frontier of AI coding
What’s Hercules’ stack?
Technologies: Typescript, React, AI SDK, Postgres, Redis, Clickhouse, Tailwind, IaC (CDK, Terraform), Docker, Otel, Hono, Drizzle ORM, Temporal
Clouds: Cloudflare, AWS
AI Models: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google
We ship. We ship fast, iterate, and correct mistakes quickly. Our bias for action speeds up our learning and delights our customers.
Is Hercules in-office or remote?
Hercules founding team works in-office in San Francisco (Kearny and Bush). We have a very strong preference for in office. We are open to remote for exceptional candidates who are willing to 1) work in US time zones and 2) travel to the office regularly.
What are Hercules’ benefits?
Unlimited AI token budget
Take what you need vacation policy
Healthcare, vision, and dental
What’s the compensation?
$100k-$350k + equity (variable based on seniority, equity, and location)
Standard company text repeated across Hercules's postings is omitted here.