---
title: 'Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Core Product Systems at fal'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-software-engineer-core-product-systems-fal-san-francisco-skzr90wvmked'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Core Product Systems at fal

- **Company:** fal
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $180k–$250k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-07-06
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/fal-ai/eca6ed6d-9229-4caf-a825-3e1a86d453d1

## Job description

fal is the generative media ecosystem powering the next generation of AI products. We build the infrastructure, tools, and model access that teams need to move from idea to production, and do it at scale without compromise. For developers and enterprises, fal is the foundation that makes generative media not just possible, but practical: a unified platform where high-performance inference, orchestration, and observability come together to unlock new categories of AI-native products. As generative media reshapes industries across a market projected to grow by hundreds of billions over the next decade, fal is becoming the ecosystem that ambitious teams build on.

## About this role

This is a founding role on the small team that owns fal's core product systems — the connected tissue the whole business runs on: usage, billing, pricing, accounts, access, API keys, and model discovery. You'll join early, own these systems end-to-end (from data model through rollout to operational health), and design the APIs and product surfaces other teams and customers depend on. These are backend systems where correctness underpins real revenue and customer trust. You will inherit systems that are functional, but you'll own their evolution over time to meet our growing customer needs and scale. Your first priority will be billing, fraud, and pricing. These are our highest-impact business initiatives, directly affecting both customer experience and revenue. From there, you'll expand your ownership across accounts, access and identity, API keys, and model discovery. If you enjoy building and evolving high-impact platform systems that directly influence both our customers' experience and the effectiveness of our internal teams, this is the place to be.

## What you'll do

- Own billing and pricing first — metering, usage roll-ups, pricing logic, and the customer/admin surfaces that make cost understandable and trustworthy.
- Design APIs, data models, and product contracts other teams safely build on.
- Grow into the broader portfolio — accounts, access/identity, API keys, and model discovery — and the surfaces that expose usage, cost, and access.
- Engineer for correctness and resilience: source of truth, idempotency, auditability, permissions, observability, graceful failure.
- Own operational health, including on-call for the systems you build.
- Partner across product, infra, finance, revenue, security, and customer-facing teams — turning messy, manual workflows into durable systems.

## What we're looking for

- 5+ years building reliable, production backend systems (Python and/or TypeScript).
- Strong PostgreSQL — schema design, queries, migrations, performance.
- API & data-model design for complex product or business domains.
- Can ship product and internal surfaces in React / Next.js / TypeScript.
- Strong systems judgment (source of truth, idempotency, auditability, permissions, observability) and product judgment (workflows, edge cases, customer trust).
- Thrives in ambiguous, cross-functional work where product, business logic, and infra overlap; ships a pragmatic v1 that can evolve. Priorities move fast — you're comfortable with that.

Nice-to-have (the likely differentiators)

- Usage-based billing / metering / pricing — Stripe, Orb, Metronome, or similar.
- Identity & access — permissions, SSO, API keys, org/account hierarchy.
- Developer platforms, model registries, or usage/observability dashboards.
- Generative AI / inference APIs or other developer-facing AI products.

## Our stack

Python (primary backend) · TypeScript + React/Next.js (product surfaces) · PostgreSQL / SQL · with some migration to Rust underway.

The team & who you'll work with You'll be an early member of a small, high-leverage team (currently ~4) that owns fal's core product and billing systems. You'll work daily with product and infra engineers, and partner closely with finance, revenue, security, and customer-facing teams — this role lives at the seam of engineering and the business, so cross-functional partnership is core to the job, not a side task.

What fal offers Interesting, challenging work at the frontier of generative media · competitive salary and equity · learning and growth · relocation assistance + visa sponsorship to San Francisco · health, dental, and vision · regular team events and offsites.

## U.S. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY INFORMATION:

fal provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

## About fal

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: fal provides a serverless generative media platform for developers, enabling lightning-fast inference for image, video, audio, and 3D AI models.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series D)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Burkay Gur, Gorkem Yurtseven

## Core Business
- **Industry**: Technology, Information, and Internet (Generative AI Infrastructure)
- **Target Customers**: B2B — developers, enterprises, and research labs building generative AI applications.
- **Mission**: Build the world’s first generative media platform for developers, enabling real-time AI content creation at scale.

## Products & Services
- **fal Inference Engine™**: A globally distributed serverless runtime optimized for large ML models on thousands of GPUs (H100, H200, B200). Up to 10x faster than alternatives, with 99.99% uptime and no cold starts.
- **Model Gallery**: A library of 1,000+ production-ready generative media models (image, video, audio, 3D) accessible via a unified API and SDKs.
- **Dedicated Compute Clusters**: On-demand or reserved GPU clusters for fine-tuning, training, or running custom models, with access to 1000s of Blackwell GPUs.
- **fal Compute**: Hourly GPU pricing for dedicated VMs, starting at $1.89/hr for high-end hardware.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (most recent round: $140M Series D)
- **Key Metric**: $140M Series D raised
- **Total Funding**: At least $163M across rounds (Pre-Seed $9M, Series A $14M, Series D $140M)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Bessemer Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins, NVIDIA
- **Growth Signals**:
    - Headcount grew 246% year-over-year to ~84 employees
    - Trusted by 1.5M+ developers and leading enterprises
    - Powers AI features for public companies and hypergrowth startups
    - SOC 2 compliant and enterprise-ready

## Competitive Advantages
- **Serverless, globally distributed inference engine** purpose-built for generative media, eliminating GPU configuration and cold starts.
- **Massive scale**: Capable of handling 100M+ daily inference calls with enterprise-grade reliability.
- **Proprietary distributed data-feeding engine** and deep optimization for diffusion models.
- **Deep ecosystem**: 1,000+ pre-integrated models and strong partnerships with NVIDIA and top-tier VCs.
- **Developer-first experience**: Unified API, SDKs, and per-output pricing model reduce barriers to deployment.

## Strategic Focus
- **Global infrastructure scaling**: Expanding GPU fleet across regions to meet accelerating demand for generative media.
- **Enterprise adoption**: Strengthening compliance (SOC 2, SSO), private endpoints, and dedicated support for large customers.
- **Generative Media Fund**: Investing in the next generation of companies building in the space.
- **Talent acquisition**: Aggressively hiring across engineering, go-to-market, and operations to keep pace with growth.

## Why Work Here
- **Engineering culture**: Fast-paced, high-agency environment focused on infrastructure and ML performance. Teams own critical systems from day one.
- **Work model**: Primarily in-person at downtown San Francisco office. Remote opportunities available for exceptional candidates.
- **Visa sponsorship**: Offered with relocation support to San Francisco.
- **Benefits**: Competitive salary and equity, health/dental/vision insurance, regular team events and offsites.
- **Growth trajectory**: Company is scaling rapidly (headcount +246% YoY) with ambitious goals to 1000x usage, offering significant career growth opportunities.
- **Impact**: Work on the foundational platform powering generative AI for millions of users and leading enterprises.

## Sources
1. [fal.ai](https://fal.ai/)
2. [fal Careers](https://fal.ai/careers)
3. [fal Blog - Series D Announcement](https://blog.fal.ai/our-series-d-scaling-fal/)
4. [LinkedIn - fal](https://www.linkedin.com/company/features-and-labels)
5. [Greenhouse Jobs Board](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/fal)

## Other roles at fal

- [Community Growth](https://feeny.ai/job/community-growth-fal-san-francisco-kr7qer3t33f9) — San Francisco, CA
- [Growth Marketer](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-marketer-fal-san-francisco-2h7dy10cz890) — San Francisco, CA
- [Account Manager, Enterprise](https://feeny.ai/job/account-manager-enterprise-fal-san-francisco-wgmhm5avrwrg) — San Francisco, CA
- [Program Manager, Global Mobility & Immigration](https://feeny.ai/job/program-manager-global-mobility-immigration-fal-san-francisco-hqkkbr85qv6v) — San Francisco, CA
- [Founding GTM Recruiter](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-gtm-recruiter-fal-san-francisco-6xy1qg08tv1r) — San Francisco, CA
- [Product Storyteller](https://feeny.ai/job/product-storyteller-fal-san-francisco-hc3h74xg3nvx) — San Francisco, CA
- [Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-software-engineer-kubernetes-infrastructure-fal-united-states-hx4cwfd1p5nz) — United States
- [Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Network Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-software-engineer-network-infrastructure-fal-united-states-s5jtc2a7y3yv) — United States
- [Account Receivable Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/account-receivable-specialist-fal-san-francisco-z3r3jtrmfna2) — San Francisco, CA
- [GTM Operations Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/gtm-operations-engineer-fal-san-francisco-917bk2d9xyh1) — San Francisco, CA