Staff Software Engineer (AI Evals)

Staff Software Engineer (AI Evals)

Contract | $100–$200/hour | 20-40 hrs/week | Start ASAP

We’re looking for highly experienced software engineer to help evaluate the quality of interactions with modern coding agents such as OpenAI Codex and Claude Code.

This is not a traditional engineering role.

You won’t be writing production code.

You’ll be evaluating something harder: whether the model thinks like a great engineer.

What This Role Actually Is

You will assess how AI coding agents behave in real-world scenarios — focusing on:

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Whether the response makes sense

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Whether the preamble and reasoning are useful

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Whether the output reflects strong engineering judgment

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Whether the interaction feels right to an experienced developer

This role is about engineering taste — not syntax correctness.

What You’ll Be Doing

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Evaluate AI-generated coding interactions end-to-end

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Judge whether outputs are:

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Useful

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Correct (at a high level)

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Aligned with how a strong engineer would think

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Assess the quality of explanations and reasoning , not just code

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Distinguish between different levels of response quality (e.g. what makes something a 2 vs 4 )

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Provide clear, opinionated feedback on:

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What worked

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What didn’t

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What felt “off” or misleading

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Help define what great looks like when interacting with tools like Cursor

What We Mean by “Taste”

We’re specifically looking for engineers who can answer questions like:

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Does this feel like something a strong engineer would actually say?

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Is this explanation helpful, or just technically correct?

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Is the model guiding the user well, or just dumping output?

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Would this interaction build or erode trust?

You should be comfortable making subjective but rigorous judgments .

Who You Are

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Staff / Principal-level engineer (or equivalent experience)

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Strong background in one of the below:

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Go

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Python

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Rust

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TypeScript / JavaScript

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Hands-on experience using:

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OpenAI Codex

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Claude Code

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Cursor

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Deep familiarity with modern AI-assisted dev workflows

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Able to evaluate code without needing to fully execute or deeply review every line

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Comfortable giving direct, opinionated feedback

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High bar for what “good engineering” looks like

Nice to Have

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Experience with tools like Cursor or similar AI-first IDEs

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Prior exposure to prompt design or evaluation workflows

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Experience mentoring senior engineers or defining engineering standards

Engagement Details

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Rate: $100–$200/hour

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Hours: ~20 hours+

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Duration: Through October w/possible extentions

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Start: ASAP

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Process:

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Take-home evaluation exercise

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Background Check

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Offer

Originally posted on Himalayas