Lead AI Software Engineer

At Klaviyo, we value the unique backgrounds, experiences and perspectives each Klaviyo (we call ourselves Klaviyos) brings to our workplace each and every day. We believe everyone deserves a fair shot at success and appreciate the experiences each person brings beyond the traditional job requirements. If you're a close but not exact match with the description, we hope you'll still consider applying. Want to learn more about life at Klaviyo? Visit careers.klaviyo.com to see how we empower creators to own their own destiny.
Lead Software AI Engineer
At Klaviyo, we believe the future of software lies not in productivity tools for human users but in software that can run and optimize itself based on outcome or reward metrics. We've built the infrastructure and application that serve as the interface between businesses and consumers. We now have over 167,000 customers, billions of consumer profiles, and hundreds of billions of customer messages and follow-on conversion data. We have a big opportunity to build state-of-the-art AI and machine learning technologies at Klaviyo to power our products and develop AI agents that can automatically create and execute marketing or customer experiences, strategies, and campaigns for any business.
As a Lead Software AI Engineer at Klaviyo, you'll set technical direction and drive the design of scalable backend systems and AI-powered user experiences that form the foundation of our AI product strategy. You'll work closely with product managers, machine learning engineers, and data scientists while mentoring engineers and shaping architectural decisions. This is a backend-heavy leadership role with a strong focus on applied AI/ML, including large language models (LLMs) and agentic AI systems.
How You Will Make a Difference

• Lead the design and development of backend systems that enable scalable AI solutions for 167K+ customers.
• Architect robust, reliable, and scalable data pipelines that train and serve AI/ML models at scale.
• Drive the integration of LLMs into production systems, powering AI agents that create and execute real-time customer experiences.
• Establish best practices for model evaluation, monitoring, and performance across generative and agentic AI use cases.
• Mentor and guide engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and customer-centric product thinking.
• Partner with cross-functional leaders to influence AI product strategy and deliver high-impact solutions.

Who You Are

• 7-10 years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong focus on backend systems and distributed architectures.
• Recent, hands-on experience with AI/ML and LLMs, including fine-tuning, evaluation, and production deployment.
• Proven ability to design and scale distributed systems that support AI-driven applications and agent capabilities.
• Proficient in Python and modern backend frameworks (FastAPI, Django preferred).
• Skilled with big data tools (Apache Spark, Hadoop) and distributed task queues (Kafka, Celery, SQS, RabbitMQ, Redis).
• Experienced in architecting APIs and cloud-native solutions (AWS, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines).
• Demonstrated technical leadership - mentoring engineers, shaping architecture, and raising the bar for engineering practices.
• Thrives in a fast-paced, startup-like environment with high autonomy and ownership.
• Curious, adaptable, and motivated to stay on the cutting edge of AI/ML research and apply it to real-world business challenges.

Nice to Have

• Experience training and deploying reinforcement learning systems.
• Prior experience leading cross-functional initiatives involving data science, ML engineering, and product.

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Our salary range reflects the cost of labor across various U.S. geographic markets. The range displayed below reflects the minimum and maximum target salaries for the position across all our US locations. The base salary offered for this position is determined by several factors, including the applicant's job-related skills, relevant experience, education or training, and work location.
In addition to base salary, our total compensation package may include participation in the company's annual cash bonus plan, variable compensation (OTE) for sales and customer success roles, equity, sign-on payments, and a comprehensive range of health, welfare, and wellbeing benefits based on eligibility. Please visit Klaviyo Rewards to find out more about our Total Rewards package.
Your recruiter can provide more details about the specific salary/OTE range for your preferred location during the hiring process.
Base Pay Range For US Locations:
$188,000 - $282,000 USD
Get to Know Klaviyo
We're Klaviyo (pronounced clay-vee-oh). We empower creators to own their destiny by making first-party data accessible and actionable like never before. We see limitless potential for the technology we're developing to nurture personalized experiences in ecommerce and beyond. To reach our goals, we need our own crew of remarkable creators-ambitious and collaborative teammates who stay focused on our north star: delighting our customers. If you're ready to do the best work of your career, where you'll be welcomed as your whole self from day one and supported with generous benefits, we hope you'll join us.
AI fluency at Klaviyo includes responsible use of AI (including privacy, security, bias awareness, and human-in-the-loop). We provide accommodations as needed.
Klaviyo is committed to a policy of equal opportunity and non-discrimination. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, citizenship, national origin, color, religion or religious creed, age, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, veteran or active military status, marital status, criminal record, genetics, retaliation, sexual harassment or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
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