Staff Software Engineer (AI Evals)

STAFF SOFTWARE ENGINEER (AI EVALS)

Contract | $100–$200/hour | 20-40 hrs/week | Start ASAP

We’re looking for highly experienced software engineer to help evaluate the quality of interactions with modern coding agents such as OpenAI Codex and Claude Code.

This is not a traditional engineering role.

You won’t be writing production code.
You’ll be evaluating something harder: whether the model thinks like a great engineer.

WHAT THIS ROLE ACTUALLY IS

You will assess how AI coding agents behave in real-world scenarios — focusing on:

– Whether the response makes sense

– Whether the preamble and reasoning are useful

– Whether the output reflects strong engineering judgment

– Whether the interaction feels right to an experienced developer

This role is about engineering taste — not syntax correctness.

WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING

– Evaluate AI-generated coding interactions end-to-end

– Judge whether outputs are:

– Useful

– Correct (at a high level)

– Aligned with how a strong engineer would think

– Assess the quality of explanations and reasoning, not just code

– Distinguish between different levels of response quality (e.g. what makes something a 2 vs 4)

– Provide clear, opinionated feedback on:

– What worked

– What didn’t

– What felt “off” or misleading

– Help define what great looks like when interacting with tools like Cursor

WHAT WE MEAN BY “TASTE”

We’re specifically looking for engineers who can answer questions like:

– Does this feel like something a strong engineer would actually say?

– Is this explanation helpful, or just technically correct?

– Is the model guiding the user well, or just dumping output?

– Would this interaction build or erode trust?

You should be comfortable making subjective but rigorous judgments.

WHO YOU ARE

– Staff / Principal-level engineer (or equivalent experience)

– Strong background in one of the below:

– Go

– Python

– Rust

– TypeScript / JavaScript

– Hands-on experience using:

– OpenAI Codex

– Claude Code

– Cursor

– Deep familiarity with modern AI-assisted dev workflows

– Able to evaluate code without needing to fully execute or deeply review every line

– Comfortable giving direct, opinionated feedback

– High bar for what “good engineering” looks like

NICE TO HAVE

– Experience with tools like Cursor or similar AI-first IDEs

– Prior exposure to prompt design or evaluation workflows

– Experience mentoring senior engineers or defining engineering standards

ENGAGEMENT DETAILS

– Rate: $100–$200/hour

– Hours: ~20 hours+

– Duration: Through October w/possible extentions

– Start: ASAP

– Process:

– Take-home evaluation exercise

– Background Check

– Offer