Software Engineer at ara.so (San Francisco, CA)
ara.so· San Francisco, CA· $105k–$225k·
Role details
Job description
About Ara
Ara (YC P26) is building the fastest personal AI agent computing environment, designed to run autonomous agents 24/7. We provide instant, secure cloud runtimes where agents execute inside isolated environments with persistent state and real-world permissions. Agents can operate across file systems, inboxes, APIs, and workflows programmatically. We are building the infrastructure layer that makes AI agents native to personal computing.
The Role
We are hiring a Software Engineer to help architect and scale the core runtime systems powering autonomous agents. You will work on backend orchestration, secure sandboxed execution environments, stateful runtime infrastructure, API layers, and distributed systems designed for high concurrency and reliability. This is an on-site role in San Francisco focused on foundational systems, not surface-level features.
What You Will Do
- Design and implement low-latency backend services
- Build and maintain secure execution environments
- Develop scalable distributed systems
- Integrate third-party APIs and external services
- Contribute to architectural decisions across the stack
What We Are Looking For
- Strong computer science fundamentals in systems, networking, and concurrency
- Experience building and operating production backend systems
- Proficiency in modern backend technologies and API design
- Comfort with cloud infrastructure and distributed architectures
- High ownership mindset and ability to ship quickly Nice to have: experience with sandboxing, virtualization, agent frameworks, LLM-integrated systems, or infrastructure automation.
If you want to burn millions of tokens building real infrastructure instead of demos, join us.
Why work at ara.so
- Culture: Small team, high ownership, bias toward shipping real production systems. The founders describe it as “the software factory we wanted as engineers.” ara.so/careers
- Work environment: Remote-friendly (headquarters in San Francisco). The team has “built and lived together across four cities” ycombinator.com. Founding engineer role offers high autonomy across product, runtime, and production systems.
- Engineering culture: Emphasis on “dependable products, not demos.” Clear communication and comfort with hard trade-offs are valued. The stack is modern and agent-oriented (cloud infrastructure, LLM orchestration, fast iteration).
- Perks: Not explicitly listed, but typical early-stage YC startup benefits (equity, flexible schedule, direct impact on product direction).