--- title: 'Staff AI engineer at Connectly Inc' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-ai-engineer-connectly-inc-san-francisco-fc286yjz9fyv' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-11' --- # Staff AI engineer at Connectly Inc - **Company:** Connectly Inc - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** hybrid - **Posted:** 2026-03-03 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/connectly/d4e82fbb-8f7f-4d8f-a6f2-5ebf2c84edc9/application **Skills:** Python, AWS, Kafka, Postgres, DynamoDB, LLMs, Model fine-tuning, Prompt engineering, Multi-agent orchestration, AI evaluations, Distributed systems, Inference optimization, Caching, Large-scale data pipelines > Lead Connectly’s company-wide technical strategy for AI systems and infrastructure, reporting directly to the CTO. Architect and deploy large-scale AI systems, including LLMs and multi-agent orchestration, while mentoring engineering teams and driving innovation in conversational commerce. ## Job description At Connectly we are building the future of conversational commerce in Latin America with the focus on Whatsapp. Buying on Whatsapp is ubiquitous in Latin America, yet only small businesses have made it truly seamless by asking real people to respond to Whatsapp messages. We at Connectly are building an AI-powered sales platform for large retailers. We’re a VC-backed Series B startup with a world-class team from Meta, Google, Uber, and other leading Silicon Valley companies. We operate as a hybrid organization, with offices in Bogotá and San Francisco, and distributed teams across Latin America, including Brazil, where many of our AI initiatives are based. Job summary - We are seeking an accomplished and visionary Staff AI Engineer to lead Connectly’s company-wide technical strategy for AI systems and infrastructure. This position reports directly to the CTO and plays a central role in shaping how Connectly’s technology, architecture, and AI capabilities evolve to serve millions of retail customers across Latin America. You will drive the design, development, and deployment of large-scale AI systems, leading the company’s efforts to innovate at the intersection of machine learning, conversational interfaces, and enterprise integration. This role blends deep hands-on technical work with strategic leadership, requiring an engineer who can operate across multiple levels of abstraction, from model tuning and latency optimization to long-term architecture and platform vision. Responsibilities include: - Define and execute the technical strategy for Connectly’s AI platform in collaboration with the CTO and senior leadership. - Architect, build, and launch production-grade AI systems that power customer-facing conversational experiences at scale. - Lead technical alignment across AI, infrastructure, and application engineering teams spanning Brazil, Bogotá, and San Francisco. - Experiment with and deploy advanced LLMs to address business use cases including retrieval-augmented generation, multi-agent orchestration, and contextual reasoning. - Design evaluation frameworks for AI model quality, latency, safety, and overall customer experience. - Develop pipelines for model fine-tuning, prompt optimization, and continuous learning, ensuring high performance and reliability. - Partner with platform and infrastructure teams to optimize cost, performance, and scalability across the AI stack. - Collaborate with product and data leadership to turn strategic objectives into measurable outcomes. - Serve as a hands-on technical mentor, guiding engineering teams and fostering a culture of innovation, rigor, and excellence. - What will make you excel at this job: - Exceptional communication and leadership skills, with the ability to influence technical and strategic direction across the company. - Proven success in defining and implementing large-scale technical strategies in complex or distributed environments. - Deep understanding of both the science and engineering of modern AI systems. - Strategic mindset with the ability to balance long-term platform investments and short-term product needs. - Passion for innovation and applying cutting-edge AI technologies to real-world customer challenges. Requirements: - MS or BS in Computer Science (required). - 10+ years of software engineering experience with a strong focus on AI/ML systems. - Proven track record of launching customer-facing AI products using LLMs. - Expertise in model fine-tuning, prompt engineering, multi-agent orchestration, and AI evaluations. - Experience leading technical strategy or architecture initiatives across large or multi-disciplinary engineering organizations. - Background in a leading AI or technology company with exposure to world-class engineering practices. - Strong understanding of distributed systems, inference optimization, caching, and large-scale data pipelines. - Hands-on experience with Python, AWS, Kafka, Postgres, and DynamoDB or equivalent technologies. ## Benefits - Direct impact on the company’s technical and AI strategy alongside the CTO. - Competitive compensation and equity participation. - Unlimited time off and flexible working hours. - Hybrid work culture with teams in Brazil, Bogotá, and San Francisco. We are a strong believer in passion, curiosity and willingness to learn on the job. If you are in doubt, we encourage you to apply! Connectly is an equal opportunity employer. We’re committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and supportive workplace that is distributed around the world. ## About Connectly Inc ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Connectly provides an AI-powered conversational commerce platform that helps brands automate sales, marketing, and customer support across messaging channels like WhatsApp. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series B) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2020 - **Founders**: Stefanos Loukakos (Co-founder & CEO) ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Conversational AI, Customer Engagement, E-commerce Enablement - **Target customers**: B2B; primarily mid-market to enterprise retail and e-commerce brands across 15+ industries and 20+ countries - **Mission or purpose statement**: To build AI that creates real, useful conversations between businesses and their customers, transforming every meaningful interaction into powerful business growth. ## Products & Services - **AI Sales Agents**: Autonomous AI agents that engage prospects, qualify leads, and convert conversations into revenue through personalized, context-aware messaging. - **AI Support Agents**: 24/7 automated customer service that resolves issues, handles billing and alerts, and scales support capacity without additional hiring. - **WhatsApp Marketing Platform**: AI-powered outbound marketing flows for driving activation, re-engagement, and loyalty — all within WhatsApp. - **Utility Messaging**: Automated service, billing, and alert notifications via WhatsApp’s utility messaging channel. - **Agent Assist & Routing**: Real-time tools for human agents, including intent detection, tone/urgency surfacing, and automatic routing to the right person. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total Funding of $37.6M; Annual Revenue estimated at $3.5M (as of latest data) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Alibaba Group (led Series B), Volpe Capital (led Series A), Unusual Ventures, Globant Ventures, Italian Angels for Growth, Canary. Investors also include Philippos Kourkoulos Latsis. - **Growth Signals**: 150+ clients across 15+ industries and 20+ countries; operates in 18 countries including Brazil, Colombia, Greece, Turkey, Spain, and the US; 52 employees with active hiring (8 open positions as of mid-2026); LinkedIn follower growth of +49.7% year-over-year. ## Competitive Advantages - **Proprietary AI Agents**: Built specifically for conversational commerce, with deep WhatsApp integration and context-aware personalization across the full customer lifecycle. - **Omnichannel Depth**: Supports inbound, outbound, and utility messaging on the world’s most popular messaging app (WhatsApp), with a single platform covering acquisition, support, and loyalty. - **Global Footprint**: Strong presence in Latin America and Europe, with localized teams in key markets (Brazil, Colombia, Greece, Spain, Turkey). - **Backed by Alibaba**: Strategic investment from Alibaba Group signals strong enterprise credibility and potential for global expansion. ## Strategic Focus - **AI Leadership**: Continuing to advance AI agent capabilities for sales, support, and marketing — with a focus on human-level conversation quality and business logic. - **Global Expansion**: Scaling across America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, with a fully remote operating model. - **Product Depth**: Moving beyond simple automation to a 360° platform that manages the entire customer lifecycle — from lead to repurchase. - **Vertical Specialization**: Deepening capabilities for retail and e-commerce while expanding into adjacent industries. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Emphasizes transparency, openness, accountability, and ownership. The team is described as “constantly looking for great humans.” - **Remote-First**: Operates as a fully remote team across America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Flexibility is a core perk. - **Engineering & AI Focus**: Heavy technical team (32% of headcount in technical roles) with active roles for Senior Software Engineers, AI Leads, and Staff AI Engineers. Strong engineering culture with alumni from Facebook, Google, Uber, and Rappi. - **Global Team**: Diverse workforce spanning 18+ countries — a multicultural environment by design. - **Growth Trajectory**: Series B funded, 150+ clients, active hiring — a scale-up phase with significant impact opportunity for early employees. - **Employer Rating**: 4.2/5.0 on LinkedIn (17 reviews), with strong scores for career opportunities (4.2) and culture (4.0). ## Sources 1. [connectly.ai](https://www.connectly.ai/) 2. [connectly.ai/about-us](https://www.connectly.ai/about-us) 3. [connectly.ai/careers](https://www.connectly.ai/careers) 4. [linkedin.com/company/connectly-ai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/connectly-ai) 5. [cbinsights.com/company/connectly](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/connectly) ## Other roles at Connectly Inc - [Account Manager (EU)](https://feeny.ai/job/account-manager-eu-connectly-inc-europe-xyda41ma9wn3) — Europe - [Account Manager (Brazil)](https://feeny.ai/job/account-manager-brazil-connectly-inc-brazil-edb1fy4mgaw1) — Brazil - [Software Engineer (Colombia)](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-colombia-connectly-inc-latam-colombia-gknncs2dy30z) — LATAM (Colombia) - [Senior Software Engineer (SF)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-sf-connectly-inc-san-francisco-bdgf4b6en0jr) — San Francisco, CA - [EU GO Senior Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/eu-go-senior-software-engineer-connectly-inc-greece-qvg3am3tq9m0) — Greece