About Patronus AI

Patronus AI is a frontier lab developing simulation research and infrastructure to accelerate progress toward human-aligned AGI. We are on a mission to simulate all of the world’s intelligence.

We are the team behind some of the earliest and most influential research in AI evaluation like FinanceBench, Lynx, SimpleSafetyTests, CopyrightCatcher, Humanity’s Last Exam, and more. We are formerly AI researchers and engineers from companies like Meta AI, Amazon AGI, and Google. Our customers include foundation model labs and Fortune 500 enterprises like Adobe. We are backed by top-tier investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners, Notable Capital, Stanford University, Noam Brown, Gokul Rajaram, and more.

Responsibilities

As an Engineering Lead at Patronus AI, you will build world class agent simulation and research infrastructure that defines how agentic AI systems are trained, evaluated and improved. You will scope and drive simulation projects end-to-end, prototyping creative, complex systems and translating them into production-ready systems for RL scaling.

You will lead teams to solve hard, applied research problems in simulation design, reward modeling, tooling, world data integrity, and task validity. As the Engineering Lead, you will work closely with AI research teams as a thought partner, shaping the industry standard for robust, high quality environments. Your work will directly inform how frontier labs design, train and improve the next generation of agents for long-horizon tasks, progressing our path towards safe, human-aligned general intelligence.

In this role, you will:

• Build state-of-the-art systems for agent simulation, evaluation and reinforcement learning environments used to test and train frontier models.
• Develop infrastructure for task generation, synthetic data generation, verifiable reward design and tool simulations.
• Ideate, scope and implement creative RL environments to train agents with human-like capabilities in areas such as reasoning, tool use, long horizon planning.
• Lead a team of Frontend, Backend, ML, Research, and QA engineers to build environments and benchmarks. Manage timelines, provide technical guidance, and ensure high-velocity output across the team.
• Work with customers on environment integrations, stepping in hands-on to unblock the team as needed.
• Produce high-quality, reproducible, production-level research code that integrates cleanly into Patronus AI’s and our client’s systems.
• Collaborate closely with research, engineering, and product teams to translate research ideas into robust, real-world benchmarks and environments.
• Communicate progress clearly and proactively, flagging risks, blockers, or timeline changes early.
• Partner directly with research teams at leading AI labs to turn real-world failure modes into benchmarks and environments that measurably drive model improvements where it matters most.

Qualifications
"The number one qualification to succeed in this machine learning course is gumption” - John Lafferty, CS Professor at Yale

Above all, we look for an eagerness to learn, passion for research, creativity in problem solving and a proactive mindset. You are a great fit if you have a background in the following:

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or other quantitative field.
• Have 3+ years of software engineering experience.
• Demonstrated ability to take ambiguous problems from 0→1 and deliver high-impact outcomes end-to-end.
• Experience with modern UI frameworks like React and web-oriented programming languages like TypeScript.
• Experience with Python and backend frameworks like FastAPI or Django.
• Experience with relational databases like PostgreSQL and familiarity with vector databases and columnar databases.
• Experience working and communicating cross functionally in a team environment.
• Creativity in problem solving and strong communication skills.
• Have good character, integrity and respect for others.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity packages
• Health, dental, and vision insurance plans
• 401(k) plan + matching
• In-office private chef
• Sponsored personal tax accounting 
• Whoop band, Oura ring, Function Health
• Monthly meal stipend
• Monthly health and wellness stipend
• Equinox membership
• Fun global offsites!

Patronus AI is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in our workplace, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or other legally protected characteristics.