AI Product Engineer
San Francisco, California
Engineering - AI Application / US
Full-time Salaried / Hybrid
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Samba TV tracks streaming and broadcast video across the world with our proprietary data and technology. We are on a mission to fundamentally transform the viewing experience for everyone. Our data enables media companies to connect with audiences for new shows and movies, and enables advertisers to engage viewers and measure reach across all their devices. We have an amazing story with a unique perspective on culture formed by a global footprint of data and AI-driven insights.
Join our AI Task Force to build production AI systems that improve how we develop software and work with data. You'll design and ship autonomous agents, tool harnesses, and intelligent workflows that solve real problems for our teams.
A core part of this role is working closely with internal teams-understanding their workflows, identifying where agents can help, and building solutions tailored to their needs. You'll need to think critically about how LLMs actually work, what they're good at, and where they fall short.
Our team builds with Claude Code, Cursor, and other AI-assisted development tools daily-you should be deeply comfortable in these environments and excited to push them further.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
Build and deploy AI agents using modern agent SDKs (Claude, OpenAI, or similar) with custom tools and function calling
Design and build tool harnesses and execution environments for agents-both on desktop (local CLI, IDE integrations) and in the cloud (containerized, API-driven)
Partner with internal teams across the organization to understand their workflows, identify automation opportunities, and build agents tailored to their use cases
Think critically about LLM capabilities and limitations-understand the differences between models, when to use which, and how to get the best results from each
Develop context engineering strategies-understanding how to give LLMs the right information at the right time within token limits
Build and maintain custom tool libraries that agents can use to interact with internal systems, APIs, and data sources
Deploy and manage agents in cloud environments with proper monitoring, error handling, and cost controls
Optimize LLM costs and performance through prompt engineering, caching, and smart model selection
WHO YOU ARE
You've built AI agents and shipped them to production-not just prototypes
You've deployed agents in cloud environments and dealt with the real-world challenges that come with it
You've built tools, harnesses, or scaffolding that agents use to accomplish tasks
You use Claude Code and Cursor daily-you're deeply comfortable with AI-assisted development, including headless mode, multi-file editing, and MCP server integration
You think critically about LLMs-you understand how they work under the hood, not just how to call an API
You understand the differences between models (Claude, GPT, Gemini, open-source) and can reason about which to use for a given task
You have strong product sense-you focus on what users actually need, not just what's technically interesting
You're pragmatic-you ship 80% solutions quickly and iterate based on feedback
You can sit with a non-technical team, understand their pain points, and translate that into an agent that actually helps
You take ownership and drive things from idea to measurable impact
You communicate clearly-you can explain complex AI systems to anyone in the company
You stay current with the rapidly evolving AI landscape and bring new ideas to the team
You're comfortable working across cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, Azure) and containerized environments
Experience with advanced agent patterns or multi-agent systems
Experience building and configuring MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers
Open-source contributions to AI/ML projects
Familiarity with observability tools for LLM applications
Media, ad tech, or streaming data domain knowledge
$150,000 - $200,000 a year
Samba TV expects to offer a base salary between $150,000 - $200,000 per year for roles to be performed in New York or California; actual base salary offered will depend on various factors, including but not limited to, location, experience, and performance. Base salary is just one component of Samba TV's total compensation package for employees. Other rewards may include bonuses, short-term incentives, and long-term incentives. In addition, Samba provides health insurance, wellness offerings, life and disability insurance, a retirement savings plan, paid holidays and paid time off (PTO), and other employee benefits.
Samba TV is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.
We strive to empower connection with one another, reflect the communities we serve, and tackle meaningful projects that make a real impact.
Samba TV may collect personal information directly from you, as a job applicant, Samba TV may also receive personal information from third parties, for example, in connection with a background, employment or reference check, in accordance with the applicable law. For further details, please see Samba's Applicant Privacy Policy. For residents of the EU, Samba Inc. is the data controller.
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