Senior Staff Software Engineer

Staff / Senior Staff Software Engineer

About Us

Altius AI builds intelligent scheduling and optimization software for physical therapy and occupational therapy providers operating at a national scale. We work directly with large therapy organizations embedded inside skilled nursing facilities and inpatient rehab settings.

We are hiring our first engineering leader outside the founding team. This is a high-ownership, high-impact role where you will help define the technical foundation of the company alongside the founders.

You will work directly with former heads of product and engineering from Facebook and Google, as well as experienced Y Combinator alumni based in California.

About the Role

We're looking for a Staff or Senior Staff Software Engineer who thrives in ambiguity, takes ownership by default, and compounds leverage through tools, judgment, and clear thinking.

This is not a "tickets and tasks" role. You will define problems, shape solutions, and ship systems that matter. You will often be the most senior engineer in the room not because of title, but because of how you think, decide, and execute.

You should be fluent in modern agentic development workflows (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.), comfortable delegating to machines, and opinionated about where not to use them.

What You'll Do

● Own large, loosely-defined problem spaces end-to-end: architecture, implementation,

tradeoffs, and iteration

● Design and build production systems primarily in Python and TypeScript

● Build product and internal tooling using React or similar modern frontend frameworks

● Integrate and reason deeply about LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini) using tools

like LiteLLM

● Use agentic coding tools as force multipliers, not crutches, to move faster while maintaining rigor

● Make architectural decisions with incomplete information and revise them as reality

changes

● Identify what should be built (not just what can be built), and push back when the right answer is "don't"

● Raise the engineering bar through example, not process

● Collaborate closely with a small, high-trust team where individual leverage matters more than headcount

What We Value Most

We value sharp thinking, curiosity, and agency over any specific technology. We care more about how you reason than how many frameworks you've used.

If you are the kind of engineer who:

● Notices broken assumptions before they become incidents

● Automates yourself out of low-leverage work

● Treats ambiguity as raw material, not a blocker

● Thinks in systems, not tasks

You'll likely do very well here.

Requirements & Bar (Internal / Explicit)

This Role Is For You If You:

Thinking & Judgment

● Regularly decompose vague problems into tractable parts without external direction

● Can articulate why a solution is correct, not just that it works

● Understand second-order effects (operational, organizational, cognitive)

● Default to first principles over cargo-cult patterns

Ownership & Agency

● Have repeatedly owned outcomes, not just implementations

● Don't wait to be told what to do when something is obviously broken

● Are comfortable being accountable for decisions with real consequences

● Can operate without a product manager or tech lead telling you the plan

Technical Depth

● Strong production experience with Python

● Strong working knowledge of TypeScript and React (or equivalent)

● Hands-on experience integrating LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini)

● Familiarity with LiteLLM or equivalent abstraction layers is a strong plus

● Understand distributed systems tradeoffs at a practical level (latency, failure modes,

cost)

Agentic Development

● Actively use tools like Cursor, Claude Code, or similar

● Know when to trust them—and when not to

● Have opinions about prompting, code generation, refactoring, and verification

● Treat agentic tools as collaborators, not replacements for thinking

Environment Fit

● Experience in early-stage startups or small, high-impact teams

● Comfortable with limited process and high responsibility

● Prefer shipping over polishing endlessly

● Low ego, high standards

What This Role Is Not

This role is not a good fit if you:

● Need detailed tickets, specs, or constant direction

● Prefer optimizing for local code quality over global outcomes

● Equate seniority with years of experience rather than judgment

● Are uncomfortable making decisions without consensus

● Want a purely managerial or purely research role

● Avoid responsibility when things go wrong

This role assumes you want the ball when the game is on the line.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $110, $150,000.00 per month

Language:

• English (Required)

Work Location: Remote