Staff Software Engineer - AI Runtime

United Statesfull time

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Remote

senior

$192k–$226k

H1B: no

Apollo Graphql Staff Software Engineer - AI Runtime at Apollo Graphql to design and build systems for API discovery, schema understanding, and safe agent-to-API orchestration at enterprise scale. Own search, ranking, relevance, or query-planning problems central to AI agents.

Responsibilities

Design and build systems for API discovery, schema understanding, and safe agent-to-API orchestration at enterprise scale.
Own search, ranking, relevance, or query-planning problems central to how agents find and use the right APIs and data — this is core to the role, not a peripheral concern.
Prototype quickly, evaluate multiple algorithmic approaches, and iterate based on what you learn — priorities and direction can shift week to week as we learn from customer pilots.
Build and evaluate agentic systems: tool-calling frameworks, agent orchestration, and the observability/evaluation tooling needed to trust what agents are doing.
Collaborate closely with a small, high-context team where everyone influences architecture and direction — this is not a role with heavy process or deep management layers.
Engage with select enterprise customers piloting Constellation to understand real usage patterns and bring that insight back into the system design.
Communicate technical tradeoffs clearly to a small, technical leadership team and contribute to shaping the roadmap itself, not just executing against one.

Qualification

Experience building agent orchestrationBackground in distributed query engines

Required

You've tried multiple algorithmic approaches to a hard retrieval or ranking problem and can talk concretely about the tradeoffs.
You're genuinely energized by ambiguity — you'd rather define the right problem than execute a well-specified one, and you're comfortable when priorities shift quickly.
You communicate clearly and enjoy working in a small, fast-moving team with minimal process overhead.

Preferred

Production experience with Rust — a strong plus, but not required.
Experience building agent orchestration, tool-calling frameworks, or agent evaluation/observability systems (LLM-as-judge, tracing, etc.).
Experience with RAG systems where you owned retrieval quality, not just integration.
Background in distributed query engines, federated query planning, or database query optimization.
Whether you binge-watch a series on Netflix, plan faraway vacations from your phone, or read international news online, you've likely used Apollo's technology this week. Apollo supports some of the largest GraphQL platforms in the world.
We're not looking to rest on our laurels though — we're aiming to change how software is built. Having built the foundation that powers GraphQL at enterprise scale, we're now building the control plane for the next wave of software: AI agents that need to safely discover, understand, and act on real systems.
Apollo is intent on becoming the company where you can see your career grow through challenging work, collaborating with incredible teammates, and accomplishing the unattainable.

Benefits

Dental
Vision
Equity/RSU

Company

Apollo Graphql

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Source: ashby

Active within the past hour

Remote-friendly

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