---
title: 'Staff Software Engineer - AI Runtime at Apollo GraphQL'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-ai-runtime-apollo-graphql-united-states-yydz9nd1tyjs'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Staff Software Engineer - AI Runtime at Apollo GraphQL

- **Company:** Apollo GraphQL
- **Location:** United States
- **Compensation:** $192k–$226k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-09-01
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/apollo-graphql/ee0698f5-04ab-4694-8364-efd3f3a37ec3

## Job description

Are you excited by the challenge of building genuinely new infrastructure — where the problems aren't fully defined yet and the roadmap changes as fast as the field itself? Do you want to help figure out how AI agents discover, understand, and safely interact with real-world APIs? If so, we'd love to talk to you about joining Apollo's AI Systems team.

This team owns Constellation — Apollo's control plane for AI agents. Where GraphOS gives developers a unified way to query their data, Constellation gives AI agents a way to safely discover, understand, and coordinate across APIs at the enterprise level. This is genuinely early-stage R&D: we're piloting with select enterprise customers, iterating quickly, and figuring out the right architecture as we go rather than executing against a fixed multi-quarter plan.

## What you'll do

- Design and build systems for API discovery, schema understanding, and safe agent-to-API orchestration at enterprise scale.
- Own search, ranking, relevance, or query-planning problems central to how agents find and use the right APIs and data — this is core to the role, not a peripheral concern.
- Prototype quickly, evaluate multiple algorithmic approaches, and iterate based on what you learn — priorities and direction can shift week to week as we learn from customer pilots.
- Build and evaluate agentic systems: tool-calling frameworks, agent orchestration, and the observability/evaluation tooling needed to trust what agents are doing.
- Collaborate closely with a small, high-context team where everyone influences architecture and direction — this is not a role with heavy process or deep management layers.
- Engage with select enterprise customers piloting Constellation to understand real usage patterns and bring that insight back into the system design.
- Communicate technical tradeoffs clearly to a small, technical leadership team and contribute to shaping the roadmap itself, not just executing against one.

## Who you are — Minimum requirements

- You have hands-on, production experience owning a search, ranking, relevance, or query-planning system at real scale — not just integrating a third-party search tool, but designing and iterating on the underlying logic.
- You've tried multiple algorithmic approaches to a hard retrieval or ranking problem and can talk concretely about the tradeoffs.
- You're genuinely energized by ambiguity — you'd rather define the right problem than execute a well-specified one, and you're comfortable when priorities shift quickly.
- You communicate clearly and enjoy working in a small, fast-moving team with minimal process overhead.
- You have a growth mindset and want to be at the center of how AI agents and enterprise infrastructure intersect.

## Nice to have

- Production experience with Rust — a strong plus, but not required.
- Experience building agent orchestration, tool-calling frameworks, or agent evaluation/observability systems (LLM-as-judge, tracing, etc.).
- Experience with RAG systems where you owned retrieval quality, not just integration.
- Background in distributed query engines, federated query planning, or database query optimization.

## About Apollo

Whether you binge-watch a series on Netflix, plan faraway vacations from your phone, or read international news online, you've likely used Apollo's technology this week. Apollo supports some of the largest GraphQL platforms in the world.

We're not looking to rest on our laurels though — we're aiming to change how software is built. Having built the foundation that powers GraphQL at enterprise scale, we're now building the control plane for the next wave of software: AI agents that need to safely discover, understand, and act on real systems.

Apollo is intent on becoming the company where you can see your career grow through challenging work, collaborating with incredible teammates, and accomplishing the unattainable.

Compensation & Benefits: At Apollo, we strive to provide competitive, market-informed compensation whilst ensuring consistency within the team in each country. We make hiring decisions based on your skills, experience, and our overall assessment of what we learned during the hiring process.

In addition to the U.S. base salary range, we also provide equity and benefits. Apollo offers all U.S. employees a choice of 3 Anthem Blue Cross medical plans and California residents can also choose from an additional 2 Kaiser medical plans. Dental and Vision benefits are provided by Sun Life Financial.

Location: This is a remote position that can be done from anywhere in the US or Canada (Canada has a different compensation range).

Equal Opportunity: Apollo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to pursuing and hiring a talented and diverse workforce.

Privacy: California residents applying for positions at Apollo can see our privacy policy here https://www.apollographql.com/CCPA-Privacy-Notice-for-Employees.pdf.

E-Verify: Apollo is an E-Verify employer and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. For more information please visit E-Verify https://www.e-verify.gov.

## About Apollo GraphQL

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Apollo GraphQL provides an API orchestration platform that enables teams to unify GraphQL and REST APIs into a single, composable graph for powering AI agents, web, and mobile applications.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series D)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2016
- **Founders**: Matt DeBergalis (CTO & Co-founder), Nick Martin (Co-founder)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Software Development / API Infrastructure
- **Target customers**: B2B, Enterprise, and SMB engineering teams building modern applications and AI agents
- **Mission or purpose**: To make application development easier, better, and accessible to more people by simplifying how software applications communicate with infrastructure.

## Products & Services
- **[GraphOS Platform](https://www.apollographql.com/)**: A commercial API orchestration platform that enables backend teams to build a self-service, self-documenting graph (supergraph) that unifies GraphQL and REST APIs. It provides GraphQL-native metrics, performance optimization, and governance for AI agents, web, and mobile apps.
- **[Apollo Federation](https://www.apollographql.com/)**: An open-source architecture for composing multiple GraphQL services into a single unified graph, enabling teams to work independently while maintaining a cohesive API.
- **[Apollo Connectors](https://www.apollographql.com/)**: A low-code tool that allows teams to bring all APIs together in minutes on a declarative, query-based GraphQL platform, accelerating app development.
- **[Apollo Client](https://www.apollographql.com/)**: A popular open-source GraphQL client for frontend development, enabling declarative data fetching and state management.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (Private company)
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue of approximately **$38.8 million** (latest estimate) [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/)
- **Total Funding**: Backed by **Andreessen Horowitz, Matrix Partners, Insight Partners**, and others. Specific funding amounts not publicly detailed in recent data.
- **Notable Customers**: Netflix, Coinbase, PayPal, The New York Times, Booking.com, Expedia Group, Walmart, Peloton, Wayfair, DoorDash, Bumble, Hyatt, Volkswagen, Cox Automotive, MLB, and many more [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/).
- **Growth Signals**: Over **1 billion downloads** of its open-source software; powers some of the largest GraphQL APIs in the world; expanding into AI agent orchestration; trusted by enterprise leaders across industries [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Open-source dominance**: With over 1 billion downloads, Apollo’s open-source tools (Apollo Client, Apollo Server, Apollo Federation) are the de facto standard for GraphQL development.
- **Enterprise-grade platform**: GraphOS provides a secure, governed, and scalable infrastructure for managing APIs at scale, trusted by companies like Netflix, Coinbase, and Walmart.
- **AI-native orchestration**: The platform is purpose-built to connect AI agents to GraphQL and REST APIs, positioning Apollo at the center of the AI application development wave.
- **Strong developer community**: A massive, active open-source community ensures continuous innovation, widespread adoption, and a deep talent pool.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI agent orchestration**: Extending the graph platform to power AI agents and agentic applications, enabling safe and governed access to enterprise data.
- **Platform composability**: Continuing to evolve GraphOS to allow teams to define core entities and business logic once and ship them anywhere, across any interface.
- **Enterprise scale and governance**: Providing a central registry, standardized workflows, and security controls for large organizations to manage their API ecosystems.
- **Performance and reliability**: Optimizing GraphQL performance with features like the GraphOS Router, real-time data, and latency reduction.

## Why Work Here
- **Globally distributed, remote-first culture**: Apollo is a globally distributed company with over 220 "Apollonauts" across 10 countries and 13 time zones. There is no return-to-office mandate; the company is fully remote-first [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/careers).
- **Strong values-driven environment**: The company operates on four core values: **Growth Mindset**, **Empowering Others**, **Caring**, and **Stewardship**. These guide hiring, collaboration, and how the team shows up for each other and customers [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/careers).
- **Comprehensive benefits**: Full benefits package (varies by country), **Flexible Time Off (FTO)**, and **parental leave** for birthing and non-birthing parents, supported by a personal leave specialist [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/careers).
- **Engineering culture**: Engineers work on high-performance, secure, and reliable infrastructure for some of the most demanding GraphQL workloads in the world. The team is passionate about Rust, distributed systems, and open-source.
- **Work environment**: Fully remote-first, globally distributed team across 10 countries and 13 time zones. The company emphasizes autonomy, collaboration, and learning from each other.

## Sources
1. [Apollo GraphQL Official Website](https://www.apollographql.com/)
2. [Apollo GraphQL Careers Page](https://www.apollographql.com/careers)
3. [Apollo GraphQL LinkedIn](https://it.linkedin.com/company/apollo-graphql)
4. [Apollo GraphQL GitHub](https://github.com/apollographql)
5. [Apollo GraphQL Jobs](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/apollo-graphql)

## Other roles at Apollo GraphQL

- [Senior Staff Product Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-product-designer-apollo-graphql-united-states-ymv3e5fkep66) — United States
- [GTM Enablement Manager (Technical)](https://feeny.ai/job/gtm-enablement-manager-technical-apollo-graphql-united-states-skrkststpgdb) — United States
- [Senior Solution Engineer (Pre-sales)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-solution-engineer-pre-sales-apollo-graphql-united-states-mafb0h0ykg5x) — United States
- [Senior Enterprise Account Executive  - UK](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-enterprise-account-executive-uk-apollo-graphql-united-kingdom-q6yttaspty12) — United Kingdom
- [Senior Software Engineer - Trust and Telemetry](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-trust-and-telemetry-apollo-graphql-united-states-or-8wersrd2xzct) — United States OR, Canada
- [Senior Platform Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-platform-engineer-apollo-graphql-united-states-or-nz90v7hws6yx) — United States OR, Canada
- [Staff Software Engineer, Rust](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-rust-apollo-graphql-united-states-or-ahxt940yv1rp) — United States OR, Canada