Cognition
From Cognition's careers page
Status: listed on the employer's own careers page when we last checked (daily). Confirm on their site before applying.
This role exists for engineers who build with taste.
WE ARE AN APPLIED AI LAB BUILDING END-TO-END SOFTWARE AGENTS.
We're the makers of Devin, the first AI software engineer.
Our team is extremely talent-dense. Among our founding team, we have world-class competitive programmers, former founders, and leaders from companies at the cutting edge of AI including Scale AI, Palantir, Cursor, Waymo, Tesla, Lunchclub, Modal, Google DeepMind, and Nuro.
Building Devin is just the first step—our hardest challenges still lie ahead. If you’re excited to solve some of the world’s biggest problems and build AI that can reason on real-world tasks, apply to join us.
ROLE MISSION
AI coding is a more mature and competitive market than it was two years ago. User expectations have risen sharply: developers now expect first-minute magic, polished experiences, and a consistently high quality bar across every surface they touch. Meeting that bar across an IDE, a web product, and a CLI requires engineers who can own the full experience, not just the implementation.
This role exists for engineers who build with taste. You'll make product decisions, push through technical walls, and ship experiences that developers love, without waiting for a PM or designer to define the problem for you. The best product engineers at frontier AI companies are the ones who feel the gap between what exists and what should exist, and then close it. That's what we're looking for.
Ship Product and Talk to Users: Own features end to end, from the first line of code to the conversation with the developer who uses it. User feedback directly shapes what you build next.
Build Performant and Beautiful Experiences: Craft interfaces across our IDE, web, and CLI surfaces that feel fast, focused, and effortless. Quality is not a final pass; it's built into how you work.
Set the Standard for Agent UX: Define interaction patterns for how developers work alongside AI agents. This is new territory with no established playbook. You'll create the conventions that others will follow.
Build the Agent and Agent Harness: Work directly on Devin and the core agent infrastructure that powers it. This means building the agent loop, tool use, and the harness that lets Devin operate reliably across real-world tasks.
Punch Through Technical Walls: The best developer experiences often require solving hard engineering problems. You won't hand those off; you'll solve them.
Move Fast Across Surfaces: Ship across our IDE, web, and CLI products. Context-switch quickly and maintain a high quality bar across all of them simultaneously.
EXCEPTIONAL CANDIDATES HAVE DEMONSTRATED
Full-stack engineering depth: Strong engineering skills with a natural instinct for product quality; you notice when something is off and you fix it.
Developer empathy: Genuine understanding of developer workflows, frustrations, and what delightful tooling actually feels like.
Python, TypeScript, and React proficiency: Experience with all three in complex, production-grade products.
Independent product judgment: The ability to make sound product decisions without needing extensive process or sign-off.
UX and Design Obsession: You sweat the details others overlook: micro-interactions, transitions, response times, empty states, because you know that magical product experiences are built from hundreds of small decisions done right.
Developer tools experience: Experience building developer tools, IDEs, or technical products where the user is an engineer is a strong plus.
Relevant industry experience: Prior experience at a frontier AI lab, applied AI company, or developer tools company; you know what good looks like in this category.
Degree from a top-tier university: BS, MS, or equivalent in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related technical discipline from a highly selective program.
OUR COMMITMENT
Equal Opportunity. Cognition is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of any protected characteristic under applicable law. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities throughout the hiring process - please let us know if you need any. Cognition also considers applicants with criminal histories consistent with the SF Fair Chance Ordinance and similar local laws.
Data Privacy and Arbitration: By submitting your application, you agree to our Global Applicant and Job Candidate Privacy Notice https://cognition.com/documents/Cognition-Global-Applicant-and-Job-Candidate-Privacy-Notice.pdf. For US applicants, by submitting your application, you agree to the Applicant Arbitration Agreement https://cognition.com/documents/Cognition-Applicant-Arbitration-Agreement.pdf.
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