Sr. Lead AI Engineer
At Klaviyo, we value the unique backgrounds, experiences and perspectives each Klaviyo (we call ourselves Klaviyos) brings to our workplace each and every day. We believe everyone deserves a fair shot at success and appreciate the experiences each person brings beyond the traditional job requirements.
What this role actually needs.
At Klaviyo, we value the unique backgrounds, experiences and perspectives each Klaviyo (we call ourselves Klaviyos) brings to our workplace each and every day. We believe everyone deserves a fair shot at success and appreciate the experiences each person brings beyond the traditional job requirements. Requirements: - Seasoned backend engineer & tech lead. ~8+ years of professional software engineering experience with a strong focus on backend and distributed systems; you’ve led complex projects or areas end‑to‑end and acted as the go‑to technical owner for key services. - Hands‑on with generative & agentic AI in production. You’ve built and shipped generative or agentic AI applications (e.g., LLM‑backed flows, tool‑using agents, retrieval‑augmented systems) and are comfortable with prompt design, few‑shot approaches, fine‑tuning, and evaluation. - Deep experience with large‑scale distributed systems. You’ve architected and operated reliable services, async processing pipelines, and distributed task queues (e.g., Celery, Kafka, SQS, RabbitMQ, Redis) supporting high‑throughput workloads. - Strong Python and data tooling fluency. Proficient in Python and modern backend frameworks (FastAPI, Django or similar), with experience using big data tools such as Spark/Hadoop and ORMs like SQLAlchemy/Alembic. - Production‑grade cloud experience. Comfortable with AWS and Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, observability, and operational best practices; you treat infrastructure choices as part of the system design, not an afterthought. - Evaluation and quality‑obsessed. You’ve designed human and automated evals for AI systems, know how to instrument for quality, and understand how to balance latency, cost, and response quality in real‑world usage. Company context: Klaviyo is the public marketing automation and CDP company powering email, SMS, and AI personalization for ecommerce.
What a strong candidate brings
These requirements are extracted from the source listing and normalized for UpJobz readers.
- Seasoned backend engineer & tech lead. ~8+ years of professional software engineering experience with a strong focus on backend and distributed systems; you’ve led complex projects or areas end‑to‑end and acted as the go‑to technical owner for key services.
- Hands‑on with generative & agentic AI in production. You’ve built and shipped generative or agentic AI applications (e.g., LLM‑backed flows, tool‑using agents, retrieval‑augmented systems) and are comfortable with prompt design, few‑shot approaches, fine‑tuning, and evaluation.
- Deep experience with large‑scale distributed systems. You’ve architected and operated reliable services, async processing pipelines, and distributed task queues (e.g., Celery, Kafka, SQS, RabbitMQ, Redis) supporting high‑throughput workloads.
- Strong Python and data tooling fluency. Proficient in Python and modern backend frameworks (FastAPI, Django or similar), with experience using big data tools such as Spark/Hadoop and ORMs like SQLAlchemy/Alembic.
- Production‑grade cloud experience. Comfortable with AWS and Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, observability, and operational best practices; you treat infrastructure choices as part of the system design, not an afterthought.
- Evaluation and quality‑obsessed. You’ve designed human and automated evals for AI systems, know how to instrument for quality, and understand how to balance latency, cost, and response quality in real‑world usage.
Why this listing is more than a copied job post.
Sr. Lead AI Engineer is framed against UpJobz source checks, country scope, compensation visibility, and work-authorization signals so candidates can make a faster go/no-go decision.
United States tech market
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Compensation read
The employer source does not expose a reliable salary range, so candidates should ask for compensation early instead of waiting until late-stage interviews.
Work authorization read
Current extracted signal: Open to TN, H-1B, and OPT candidates already in the United States. UpJobz treats this as a search signal, not legal advice, and links visa-sensitive roles back to the relevant visa hub where possible.
Location read
On-site roles in Palo Alto should be compared against commute, local salary bands, and nearby employer demand.
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- Compensation is hidden, so get range clarity in the first recruiter conversation.
- Use open to tn, h-1b, and opt candidates already in the united states as part of your positioning so the recruiter does not have to infer it.
- Show concrete examples of succeeding in on-site environments.
Keywords to match against your background
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Apply through the employer source
Open the source listing from klaviyo.com, confirm the role is still active, then apply on the employer or ATS page.
Source: klaviyo.com · Source ID: 7659139003 · Confidence: 88/100 · Last checked: May 7, 2026
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