Senior AI Builder

The AI Studio is the team responsible for designing, building, and operationalizing internal software platforms across every functional department of the company, including People Operations, Customer Support, Sales, Marketing, Finance, Recruiting, and Executive Operations. We treat each internal department as its own product surface, and in truth as its own startup, with its own customers, its own metrics, and its own reasons for existing. We ship custom software, built on Replit’s own platform, to solve operational problems that off-the-shelf SaaS tools cannot serve well at our scale and pace of growth.

This is a full-time builder role with substantial autonomy. You will design, architect, and ship AI-powered internal platforms that run the operations of the company across many departments at once. This is not a role for someone who wants a narrow, well-defined lane. It is a role for someone who wants to walk into an ambiguous business problem, understand it well enough to argue about it with the department lead, and then ship the software that fixes it.

• Design, architect, and ship custom AI-powered internal platforms that serve specific operational needs across Replit’s functional departments.
• Translate ambiguous, often non-technical business requirements into technical specifications, system architectures, and shipped software products.
• Own platform development end-to-end, including front-end interfaces, back-end services, data models, third-party integrations, and AI model orchestration.
• Architect multi-stage AI pipelines incorporating large language models, including prompt engineering, tool-call architecture, structured output generation, retrieval-augmented generation, and agentic workflows.
• Conduct model selection across multiple frontier and open-source providers, evaluating models against cost per query, latency, output quality, reliability, and task-specific performance.
• Design and implement evaluation frameworks for AI features, including test datasets, scoring rubrics, and regression tests.
• Optimize AI systems for cost and performance, including the appropriate use of lighter-weight models for qualification passes, batching strategies for high-throughput workloads, and caching architectures.
• Partner directly with department leads to identify operational inefficiencies, scope solutions, and prioritize the work that creates the most leverage.
• Conduct stakeholder interviews, lead requirements-gathering sessions, and translate qualitative feedback into iterative product improvements.
• Present technical work and operational outcomes to executive leadership, including the President and senior staff.
• Design and implement integrations with third-party platforms used at Replit, including enterprise HR platforms, support ticketing systems, CRM platforms, applicant tracking systems, project management tools, and identity providers.
• Maintain and operate shipped platforms in production, including dependency management, security updates, observability, error handling, and performance monitoring.
• Document architectural decisions, system designs, and operational procedures for shipped platforms.

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Technology Management, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a closely related technical or technology-business hybrid field. Equivalent foreign degrees acceptable subject to credential evaluation. Exceptional non-traditional backgrounds with a strong shipped portfolio will be considered.
• A demonstrated portfolio of shipped software products, including AI-powered applications, and the ability to discuss technical architecture, design trade-offs, and engineering decisions in detail.
• Experience either running your own business or working at a fast-scaling startup, with real exposure to how the business operated end-to-end.
• Working proficiency in modern software engineering practices, including version control, code review, deployment pipelines, and production debugging.
• Hands-on experience with one or more large language model providers and their APIs, tool-calling interfaces, and structured output mechanisms.
• Demonstrated experience designing prompt and tool-call architectures, conducting model selection across providers, and optimizing AI systems for cost and latency.
• Programming proficiency in Python and TypeScript or JavaScript, including familiarity with relevant frameworks for AI application development.
• Experience with relational databases, SQL, and modern data tooling.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present technical work to non-technical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to operate with autonomy in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.

• Prior experience as a founder, co-founder, or early team member at a venture-backed startup, particularly one with an AI-native product.
• Prior experience in technology investment analysis or operational consulting.
• Hands-on experience building on the Replit platform, including familiarity with Replit Agent and Replit Deployments.
• Experience designing and shipping internal tools at a high-growth technology company.
• Multilingual proficiency, particularly in languages relevant to Replit’s international customer base, including Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, or other major commercial languages.
• Experience with mobile application development frameworks, including React Native and Expo.