Senior/Staff Software Engineer

About Pinecone

Pinecone is the leading vector database for building accurate and performant AI applications at scale in production. Pinecone's mission is to make AI knowledgeable. More than 9000 customers across various industries have shipped AI applications faster and more confidently with Pinecone's developer-friendly technology. Pinecone is based in New York and raised $138M in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, ICONIQ, Menlo Ventures, and Wing Venture Capital.

About the Team and Role:

The Experience Platform team is at the center of one of the most exciting transitions in software development history — the shift from human-driven to agent-driven product experiences. We own Pinecone's API, clients, authentication, revenue, and observability systems, and right now that means redesigning all of it for a world where AI agents are first-class users alongside humans.

This is a wide-scope role. You'll own things end-to-end — from backend architecture to API design to SDK and web surfaces. You’ll be working closely with product, design, and other engineering teams to identify user needs and build the right thing, at the right abstraction level, at the right time. Along the way, you will be building high-leverage platform capabilities that accelerate Pinecone’s product development and user growth systems.

We're looking for an engineer who sees this moment for what it is: a rare opportunity to shape how developers and agents interact with a category-defining product. You're not waiting to see how the industry figures out MCP, agentic workflows, and AI-native interfaces — you're already experimenting, already forming opinions, already building. You know that speed and leverage matter more than labor, and you've internalized AI-assisted development not as a productivity trick but as a fundamentally different way of working.

Responsibilities:

• Pioneer our agent experience. Shape how AI agents interact with Pinecone — designing interfaces, protocols (MCP), and tooling that make Pinecone the easiest and most capable platform for agentic workflows to build on.

• Ship end-to-end experiences across API, SDK, CLI, and web. You'll own the full surface, from the HTTP layer to the UI, and you'll make calls across all of it.

• Build systems that multiply team output. We care about what ships, not how many hours went into it. Design AI-powered workflows, automated quality gates, and high-leverage platform capabilities that let a small team move at a pace that would otherwise require 10x the headcount.

• Set the standard for AI-assisted development on the team. Use the best tools available — Claude Code, Cursor, or whatever works — and help establish patterns that make the whole team faster.

• Collaborate with product, design, and engineering to identify what users (and agents) actually need and build it at the right abstraction level, at the right time.

• Build observable, auditable systems with monitoring, alerting, and verification mechanisms — because in a high-velocity environment, you need systems that tell you when something's wrong.

Requirements:

Senior and Staff Engineers at Pinecone operate with high autonomy. You'll be an active partner in setting strategy on APIs, agent interfaces, observability, and developer experience — not just executing on a roadmap. We care more about how you think and how you work than whether your resume checks every box.

You should have:

• At least 4 years of software engineering experience

• A bias toward automation and leverage — you reach for systems and tooling before you reach for elbow grease

• Hands-on experience shipping with AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, or similar) as a genuine part of your workflow

• Proven ability to design and deliver versioned APIs, SDKs, or client libraries

• Proficiency building web interfaces with React or similar

• Experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure)

• Strong intuition for what makes APIs easy for both humans and agents to use correctly

Bonus points for:

• Experience building or consuming MCP servers, or designing APIs explicitly for agent use cases

• Familiarity with agentic frameworks and the emerging patterns around tool use, orchestration, and agent-to-agent communication

• Strong familiarity with a compiled language like Rust, Go, or Java

• Experience with large-scale open-source projects

• Experience developing database or query engine SDKs

Perks & Benefits:

• Comprehensive health coverage including medical, dental, vision, and mental health resources

• 401(k) Plan

• Equity award

• Flexible time off

• Paid parental leave

• Annual Company Retreat

• WFH Equipment Stipend

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) are the cornerstone of everything we do at Pinecone. Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply for jobs unless they believe they meet every one of the qualifications in a job description. Our top priority is finding the best candidate for the job and if you are interested in the position, we would encourage you to apply, even if you don’t believe you meet every one of the qualifications listed in this posting. All qualified applicants will receive considerations for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, veteran status, and any other legally protected status under federal, state, or local anti-discrimination laws.