Staff Software Engineer, AI Tooling

<div class="content-intro"><p>At Vast, our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. Vast is developing next-generation space stations to ensure a continuous human presence in space for America and its allies, enabling advanced microgravity research and manufacturing, and unlocking a new space economy for government, corporate, and private customers. Using an incremental, hardware-rich and low-cost approach, Vast is rapidly developing its multi-module Haven Station. Haven Demo’s 2025 success made Vast the only operational commercial space station company to fly and operate its own spacecraft. Next, Haven-1 is expected to become the world’s first commercial space station when it launches, followed by additional Haven modules to enable permanent human presence by 2030. Our team is all-in, committed to executing our mission safely and on time. If you want to work with the most talented people on Earth furthering space exploration for humanity, come join us.</p></div><p>Vast is looking for a <strong>Staff</strong> <strong>Software Engineer, AI Tooling </strong>reporting to the <strong>Senior Manager, Software Engineering </strong>to support the development of the systems that will be required for the design and build of artificial-gravity human-rated space stations.</p> <p>This will be a&nbsp;<strong>full-time</strong>,&nbsp;<strong>exempt</strong> position located in our&nbsp;<strong>Long Beach</strong>&nbsp;location.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Responsibilities:&nbsp;</strong></p> <ul> <li>Define the technical direction and long-term roadmap for Vast's internal AI platforms and tooling</li> <li>Architect and lead the development of full-stack AI applications that serve diverse use-cases across the company</li> <li>Establish engineering best practices, design patterns, and quality standards for AI systems development</li> <li>Build and maintain production-grade integrations connecting AI models with internal tools, data sources, and workflows</li> <li>Design and implement pipelines for AI response enforcement, content safety, and output formatting</li> <li>Drive the evaluation and adoption of emerging AI frameworks, models, and patterns to continuously improve internal tooling</li> <li>Collaborate cross-functionally with IT Infrastructure, security, and business stakeholders to integrate AI tooling with existing systems</li> <li>Mentor and guide other engineers contributing to AI initiatives, fostering a culture of technical excellence</li> <li>Ensure the reliability, observability, and scalability of production AI systems</li> <li>Rapidly iterate on AI tooling as the technology landscape and company needs