Software Engineer, Agent - Retail

About the Team API Agents builds the shared agent harness, tools, and infrastructure that turn OpenAI’s frontier models into systems that can reliably complete real work. We carry the capabilities behind Codex into a much broader set of products and workflows across software engineering, research, finance, healthcare, enterprise operations, and more. Our work spans search and connected context, computer use, memory, delegation and multi-agent coordination, and safe execution. Sitting at the intersection of Research, Codex, infrastructure, and applied product teams, we build reusable agent capabilities that compound across the ecosystem. About the Role We are looking for an experienced backend software engineer to build the core systems behind the next generation of agents. You will design reliable services and abstractions that help agents find the right context, use tools and computers, retain knowledge, coordinate over long-running workflows, and take action safely. The role combines deep backend and infrastructure work with strong product judgment, with opportunities to work across agent runtimes, orchestration, search, execution environments, identity and permissions, observability, and evaluations. This is software and systems engineering rather than model training: success comes from strong backend fundamentals, high agency, and the ability to turn fast-moving research capabilities into dependable production primitives. In this role, you will: Design, build, and operate the shared agent harness and backend infrastructure that power long-running, high-value workflows across OpenAI and third-party products. Build reusable capabilities across search and connected context, computer use, memory, tool execution, delegation, subagents, and multi-agent orchestration. Establish the foundations agents need to operate safely in production, including secure execution environments, identity and permissions, observability, evaluations, reliability, and cost and latency effi

About us Sierra is the leading platform for customer-facing AI agents, working with many of the world's biggest brands — including The GAP, Rocket Mortgage, SoFi, Sutter Health, and SoftBank — to transform how they serve customers and grow their businesses. We are primarily an in-person company based in San Francisco, with growing offices across North America, Europe, and Asia. We are guided by a set of values that are at the core of our actions and define our culture: Trust, Customer Obsession, Craftsmanship, Intensity, and a commitment to balancing Family along the way. These values are the foundation of our work, and we are committed to upholding them in everything we do. Our co-founders are Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor . Bret currently serves as Board Chair of OpenAI. Previously, he was co-CEO of Salesforce (which had acquired the company he founded, Quip) and CTO of Facebook. Bret was also one of Google's earliest product managers and co-creator of Google Maps. Before founding Sierra, Clay spent 18 years at Google, where he most recently led Google Labs. Earlier, he started and led Google’s AR/VR effort, Project Starline, and Google Lens. Before that, Clay led the product and design teams for Google Workspace. What you’ll do Design and deliver production-grade AI agents : You'll build and ship highly performant, reliable, and intuitive AI agents that are central, mission-critical and drive revenue directly to Sierra's growth. These aren't prototypes—they are powerful, scalable systems running in production environments across industries like finance, healthcare, and commerce. Drive the Agent Development Life Cycle (ADLC) : You'll have complete ownership and autonomy from initial pilot through deployment and continuous iteration. You'll be responsible for building, tuning, and evolving AI agents in production environments, defining the standard for ADLC best practices along the way. Partner with large enterprises and cutting-edge startups: You’ll work directly wit

About us Sierra is the leading platform for customer-facing AI agents, working with many of the world's biggest brands — including The GAP, Rocket Mortgage, SoFi, Sutter Health, and SoftBank — to transform how they serve customers and grow their businesses. We are primarily an in-person company based in San Francisco, with growing offices across North America, Europe, and Asia. We are guided by a set of values that are at the core of our actions and define our culture: Trust, Customer Obsession, Craftsmanship, Intensity, and a commitment to balancing Family along the way. These values are the foundation of our work, and we are committed to upholding them in everything we do. Our co-founders are Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor . Bret currently serves as Board Chair of OpenAI. Previously, he was co-CEO of Salesforce (which had acquired the company he founded, Quip) and CTO of Facebook. Bret was also one of Google's earliest product managers and co-creator of Google Maps. Before founding Sierra, Clay spent 18 years at Google, where he most recently led Google Labs. Earlier, he started and led Google’s AR/VR effort, Project Starline, and Google Lens. Before that, Clay led the product and design teams for Google Workspace. What you’ll do Simulation & Benchmarking: How can we craft a simulation platform to test AI agents against every real-world scenario imaginable? (See 𝜏-Bench ) Content Management: How do we create intuitive, no-code tools that allow anyone to guide and test AI agents? Agent Development Lifecycle: How do we adapt traditional software development methodologies to accommodate AI agents’ non-deterministic behavior, natural language interactions, and reliance on large language models? (See Sierra’s ADLC ) Generative Agent Development: How do we accelerate agent creation using generative tools like Cursor and Claude Code? Can we build self-improving systems based on real-world interactions, customer-driven feedback, and self-play? What you'll bring A passion

About us Sierra is the leading platform for customer-facing AI agents, working with many of the world's biggest brands — including The GAP, Rocket Mortgage, SoFi, Sutter Health, and SoftBank — to transform how they serve customers and grow their businesses. We are primarily an in-person company based in San Francisco, with growing offices across North America, Europe, and Asia. We are guided by a set of values that are at the core of our actions and define our culture: Trust, Customer Obsession, Craftsmanship, Intensity, and a commitment to balancing Family along the way. These values are the foundation of our work, and we are committed to upholding them in everything we do. Our co-founders are Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor . Bret currently serves as Board Chair of OpenAI. Previously, he was co-CEO of Salesforce (which had acquired the company he founded, Quip) and CTO of Facebook. Bret was also one of Google's earliest product managers and co-creator of Google Maps. Before founding Sierra, Clay spent 18 years at Google, where he most recently led Google Labs. Earlier, he started and led Google’s AR/VR effort, Project Starline, and Google Lens. Before that, Clay led the product and design teams for Google Workspace. What you'll do Build the core systems that power agents. You’ll work on the Agent SDK — the orchestration engine, runtime, and primitives that define how agents reason, take actions, and interact with users and systems. Design the agentic loop. What primitives do we need to build agents that are steerable and verifiable, while still conversational and adaptive? You’ll help define how agents operate in real-world environments. Improve retrieval and grounding. You’ll build systems that ensure agents provide accurate, trustworthy responses by effectively retrieving and using knowledge. Build evaluation systems. You’ll design frameworks that allow us and our customers to measure and improve agent quality over time. What you'll bring A passion for being on the f

About us Sierra is the leading platform for customer-facing AI agents, working with many of the world's biggest brands — including The GAP, Rocket Mortgage, SoFi, Sutter Health, and SoftBank — to transform how they serve customers and grow their businesses. We are primarily an in-person company based in San Francisco, with growing offices across North America, Europe, and Asia. We are guided by a set of values that are at the core of our actions and define our culture: Trust, Customer Obsession, Craftsmanship, Intensity, and a commitment to balancing Family along the way. These values are the foundation of our work, and we are committed to upholding them in everything we do. Our co-founders are Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor . Bret currently serves as Board Chair of OpenAI. Previously, he was co-CEO of Salesforce (which had acquired the company he founded, Quip) and CTO of Facebook. Bret was also one of Google's earliest product managers and co-creator of Google Maps. Before founding Sierra, Clay spent 18 years at Google, where he most recently led Google Labs. Earlier, he started and led Google’s AR/VR effort, Project Starline, and Google Lens. Before that, Clay led the product and design teams for Google Workspace. What you’ll do Design and deliver production-grade AI agents : You'll build and ship highly performant, reliable, and intuitive AI agents that are central, mission-critical and drive revenue directly to Sierra's growth. These aren't prototypes—they are powerful, scalable systems running in production environments across industries like finance, healthcare, and commerce. Drive the Agent Development Life Cycle (ADLC) : You'll have complete ownership and autonomy from initial pilot through deployment and continuous iteration. You'll be responsible for building, tuning, and evolving AI agents in production environments, defining the standard for ADLC best practices along the way. Partner with large enterprises and cutting-edge startups: You’ll work directly wit

About us Sierra is the leading platform for customer-facing AI agents, working with many of the world's biggest brands — including The GAP, Rocket Mortgage, SoFi, Sutter Health, and SoftBank — to transform how they serve customers and grow their businesses. We are primarily an in-person company based in San Francisco, with growing offices across North America, Europe, and Asia. We are guided by a set of values that are at the core of our actions and define our culture: Trust, Customer Obsession, Craftsmanship, Intensity, and a commitment to balancing Family along the way. These values are the foundation of our work, and we are committed to upholding them in everything we do. Our co-founders are Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor . Bret currently serves as Board Chair of OpenAI. Previously, he was co-CEO of Salesforce (which had acquired the company he founded, Quip) and CTO of Facebook. Bret was also one of Google's earliest product managers and co-creator of Google Maps. Before founding Sierra, Clay spent 18 years at Google, where he most recently led Google Labs. Earlier, he started and led Google’s AR/VR effort, Project Starline, and Google Lens. Before that, Clay led the product and design teams for Google Workspace. About the Tech, Media & Telecom team We work with some of the world's most influential and recognizable companies, from global telecommunications providers and leading media brands to technology platforms that power businesses worldwide. We build agents for the moments that matter, helping our customers rise to the occasion when service disruptions, major product launches, or global events like the World Cup drive millions of customer interactions. We bring Sierra’s Horizon vision to TMT by building agents that transform the entire customer relationship: Telecommunications: Turn one of the most frustrating customer experiences into one of the most personal, with agents that understand each subscriber, optimize their plan and savings, anticipate opportun