Applied AI Engineer

Sendbird is on a mission to build the AI workforce of tomorrow. Sendbird is the omnichannel AI agent platform enterprises choose to elevate the customer experience by initiating autonomous support & sales conversations, keeping humans in the loop for complex inquiries, and re-engaging customers with proactive business messages. We are the omnichannel AI agent platform enterprises choose to elevate customer experience. Trusted by 4,000+ of the world’s most popular apps—including industry leaders like Match Group, Rakuten, Yahoo, and Coupang—Sendbird powers over 7 billion messages every month.

The engineering team at Sendbird is building the next generation of intelligent, autonomous AI agents. We're on a mission to create solutions that go beyond simple chat, enabling AI to engage and take meaningful action proactively. To accomplish our goals, we are hiring for a Applied AI Engineer. You'll be a key player in this evolution, shaping how our AI agents reason, retrieve information, and use tools to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

This is a hands-on role where you will be at the forefront of AI innovation, translating cutting-edge research into scalable, production-ready features. If you are passionate about building the backend systems that power intelligent agents and love the challenge of turning complex AI concepts into a real-world product, this role is for you.

What you will do

• Develop Core Agent Capabilities: Design, build, and optimize the full backend pipeline for our AI agents. This includes advanced retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems, function-calling tools that enable agents to take accurate actions, and other agentic features.

• Voice AI Integration & Experimentation: Lead the integration and evaluation of various voice AI solutions (Speech-to-text and Text-to-Speech). You will explore both third-party SaaS APIs and potential self-hosted or fine-tuned models to deliver a low-latency, high-quality voice experience.

• Agentic Research & Prompt Engineering: Stay on top of the latest developments in AI agents and large language models (LLMs). You’ll experiment with new methodologies and incorporate state-of-the-art approaches to improve agent performance, accuracy, and overall utility.

• Build Production-Grade Systems: Use Python to build robust and scalable services that power our AI agents. You’ll be involved in the full development lifecycle, from prototyping new features to deploying and monitoring them in production.

• Integrate AI into the Platform: Collaborate with other teams to seamlessly integrate AI agents and their features into our product, ensuring a powerful and intuitive user experience.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with product managers and other engineers to translate complex requirements into working, shippable product features. You'll play a crucial role in shaping the future of our AI-driven offerings.

Who you are

• Experienced Engineer: You have 5-7 years of professional experience in data science or machine learning.

• AI Enthusiast: You are passionate about the latest developments in AI and LLMs and have hands-on experience with AI agent frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex), tool use, or prompt engineering.

• Voice AI Familiarity: You have a working knowledge of voice technologies, including Speech-to-Text (SST) and Text-to-Speech (TTS), and are comfortable evaluating different solutions based on quality, latency, and cost.

• Strong Technical Skills: You are fluent in Python and have experience building and deploying production-grade services.

• Problem Solver: You have a knack for finding the optimal solution to a given problem, balancing engineering excellence with business needs.

• Team Player: You're a collaborative person who thrives in a cross-functional environment and can effectively communicate complex technical concepts.

Even better if you offer (optional)

• Work experience in building natural language processing products.

• Experience with cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, or Azure.

• Bilingual in Korean and English

Our KR benefits include (but are not limited to)

• Silicon Valley's equity program (1-year cliff)

• Hybrid work policy, flexible work hours

• Be Your Best Self: 3.9 million won (prorated by start date) for expenses ranging from professional development classes and training, to personality assessments, to gym memberships, to books, to fitness classes, to mental health services, to massages

• Learn a Language benefit - up to 3.6 million won per year towards language lessons

• Weekly team lunch cost

• Monthly team-building cost

• Partial support for commuting costs

• Free parking at the Seolleung office

• Group insurance support that covers employees, spouses, and children

• Medical checkup support, including MRI and genetic testing - for the employee and one family member

• Seven additional paid holidays in addition to annual leave (Boost leave, Birthday leave, etc.)

• Support for the latest work devices, such as MacBook Pro (special support options for each job position)

• Unlimited snack bar filled with snacks, beverages, and instant noodles every day

• 12-week paid parental leave support (available for both mothers and fathers)

• Other support programs for congratulations and condolences

Flexible Work Policy

We offer a flexible work schedule at Sendbird. We also value collaboration and relationship building. With those values in mind, we require all employees to gather with their team in the office three days per week as a minimum. Some of our roles require a more frequent in-office schedule. Please work with your manager to understand the office time requirements for your position.

What diversity and inclusion mean to us

There is no such thing as a perfect candidate and the best employees come from a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and skill sets. Sendbird is a place where everyone can learn and grow. We respect, promote, and encourage diversity for equal employment opportunities and encourage you to apply if this role excites you.

About Sendbird

Combining omnichannel AI and battle-tested, award-winning communication APIs, Sendbird enables businesses to build AI agents and meaningful customer connections at scale. Trusted by 4,000+ leading apps—including DoorDash, Match Group, Noom, and Yahoo Sports—Sendbird powers over 7 billion conversations every month, offering exceptional reliability, security, and compliance that meet enterprise-level demands. Headquartered in California, Sendbird is backed by ICONIQ, SoftBank, Tiger Global, Y Combinator, and other reputable investors.