Chief Engineer (Principal Engineer)

About interface.ai

interface.ai is the agentic AI platform for financial services — bringing conversational and agentic AI to the credit unions and community banks that serve everyday Americans. We're not a lab, we're not a demo company, and we're not burning runway on hypotheticals. We are in production, generating real revenue, and on a mission that matters: making intelligent financial services available to the millions of people who've never had a private banker. More than 100 banks and credit unions run on interface.ai, reaching over 10 million people. Many products are live today; the biggest bets — an AI-first contact center and an AI-native consumer banking experience — are what comes next. Backed by $30M in Series A funding and already cash-flow positive, we're at the inflection point: a proven product, paying customers, and a profitable business rebuilding itself as an AI-native company to lead a world where agents, not software, do the work.

The Role

As a Chief Engineer you own a domain end-to-end and you are deeply hands-on. You architect and build alongside your team, you set the technical bar by doing the work, and you steer the rest of the domain through its engineers and leads. You run a pod directly, hold a weekly council seat alongside the founders, and partner with your Domain PM as an equal. This is the most senior technical track in the company — leadership through technical credibility, not headcount. Because AI handles the routine, everyone on the team is senior and high-leverage. This is a rare chance to own an entire domain of a profitable, category-leading AI company outright — and to shape where banking goes next.

Areas You Could Work On

These are some of the areas a Chief Engineer could own:

• The core AI runtime and the intelligence systems — knowledge, retrieval, evaluation, and the data flywheel — that make the AI reason well and keep improving.

• The AI agents members talk to across voice and chat, and the AI-first contact center that makes employees dramatically more capable.

• The integrations and computer-use work that let agents take real action in the systems institutions run on.

• The systems that turn AI conversations into measurable outcomes, plus the operational backbone that keeps the platform fast and reliable.

• The shared data platform every team builds on, and the cross-customer fraud detection that protects millions of members.

• The platform on which interface.ai's own teams and its customers build and deploy agents.

• An AI-native consumer banking experience that acts on people's behalf.

What You'll Own

• Architecture and build — you design the systems for your domain and you write the code; you set the technical standard by example, not from a distance.

• The technical bar — you ship, you review, and you hold the line on quality and velocity across your domain's pods.

• The engineers and leads in your domain — you steer and unblock them, growing the technical capability of the team without becoming a pure manager.

• Outcomes, with your Domain PM — what the domain delivers and the impact it has, not just how it's built.

• An AI-native way of working — you build on frontier models and embed AI development tools (Claude Code, Cursor) as standard practice for everyone in your domain.

What We're Looking For

• A senior-most individual contributor (Principal / Distinguished level) or a hands-on technical founder — among the strongest technical builders you know.

• You've built core systems in production at real scale — and ideally taken a hard, ambiguous bet from 0→1 or 0→GA, owning a company-defining system others depend on.

• Category-defining range — you've built something others now build on top of, or owned a bet-the-company product under high ambiguity, and can articulate the tradeoffs at every layer.

• Deep credibility in AI and agents (or in a domain's subject matter at comparable depth) — you set direction through technical authority and you are still, unmistakably, in the code.

• Extreme AI fluency — you use frontier AI tools daily and have rebuilt how you and your team work around them.

• First-principles problem-solving, exceptional learning velocity, and the judgment to operate at the company's hardest, highest-ambiguity seats.

• BS/BA in Computer Science required; MS or PhD a strong plus. San Francisco-based and committed to working onsite. H1B transfers welcome.

Who Tends To Thrive Here

The category-definer. You built a production AI runtime, an evaluation system, a contact-center or consumer product, or a platform that others now depend on — something that moved a category, not just a roadmap. The 0→1 owner. You've taken a bet-the-company system from nothing to scale under real ambiguity, made the architecture calls that held up, and stayed hands-on the whole way.

Bonus Points

• Conversational AI, voice AI, or agentic systems built and run at production scale.

• Fintech, banking, or regulated financial services background.

• A 0→1 platform, system, or product that others went on to build on.

• Published writing, conference talks, or open-source work in AI systems or platform engineering.

What This Role Is — And Isn't

Principal Chief Engineer seats are the company's highest-bar technical roles, reserved for the hardest, most consequential bets. You will own one of those domains outright — its architecture, its technical bar, and its outcomes — with a weekly council seat alongside the founders. This is leadership by building, not by managing.

It's not a role for someone who wants the seniority without the keyboard, or who needs a settled org around them. The domains at this level are the ones the company is betting on. If owning one of them end-to-end is exactly the kind of problem you've been waiting for, we want to talk.

Benefits

🩺 100% paid health, dental & vision care

💰 401(k) & financial wellness perks

🍜 Daily meals on us

🚇 Commuter benefit

💪 Monthly wellness stipend

🤖 Claude Enterprise + frontier AI tools for every employee — build with the best

🏙️ Brand-new 21st-floor SF office at 44 Montgomery — floor-to-ceiling views, worth showing up to

🌴 Discretionary PTO + paid parental leave

🧘 Mental health, wellness & family benefits

🚀 A mission-driven team shaping the future of banking

Why interface.ai

Series A · $30M raised · Cash-flow positive — we're not burning cash hoping the product works. It works. Customers are live, revenue is real, and the mission is one you can explain to your family without a slide deck.

You'll work directly with Bruce Kim (CTO / Co-Founder), who sets the technical bar and goes deep on the hardest problems, and Srinivas Njay (CEO), who is hands-on daily across product and engineering. Founding-team-tier equity, top-of-market base, comprehensive benefits, and a modern San Francisco office worth showing up to. The team is small enough that your judgment shapes everything, and the market is large enough that what you build will matter for a long time.

interface.ai is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees