Prolific is not just another player in the AI space – we are the architects of the human data infrastructure that's reshaping the landscape of AI development. In a world where foundational AI technologies are increasingly commoditized, it's the quality and diversity of human-generated data that truly differentiates products and models.
The role
We're looking for Senior Software Engineers with a 'product builder' mind-set to join our specialized team focused on serving frontier model creators and AI application developers. As a full-stack engineer, you will work across Prolific’s domains to solve customer and product problems.
This is an exciting opportunity to work directly with cutting-edge AI companies, making critical technical decisions that balance scrappy startup execution with scalable, reliable engineering as Prolific revolutionizes research for the AI community. You'll need to be based within regular commuting distance of San Francisco office, to facilitate regular in person collaboration with customers and our US team, as well as working seamlessly with our UK-based tech teams.
What you’ll bring to the role
6+ years of relevant technical expertise in a product engineering role.
Python (we use Django & Fast API)
TypeScript and JavaScript (we use Vue.js)
SQL and NoSQL databases (we use MongoDB and PostgresSQL)
Building and deploying to the cloud (we use GCP, Github Actions & CircleCI)
Instrumenting, monitoring & observability (we use Datadog)
Good understanding of modern web applications and architecture design patterns
Can translate business concepts into software models
Familiar working in both monoliths and distributed systems
Understanding of the importance of code quality and automated testing
Strong communication and collaboration skills for direct customer interaction
Ability to quickly learn and adapt across the breadth of Prolific’s domains
Judgment to balance scrappy startup execution with scalable, reliable engineering
Comfort with rapid iteration and responding to customer queries with urgency
Experience supporting applications in production environments
Experience working in a collaborative product engineering team
Interest in the product lifecycle and delivering value to customers
Comfortable learning from feedback and iterating based on data
Curious and motivated to continuously improve your technical skills
What you’ll be doing in the role
You will be highly self-motivated and energetic and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment with a bias for action, making decisions balancing generic, scalable solutions with rapid, scrappy implementations
Work as part of a cross functional team alongside engineers, product managers, account managers, and customer success specialists
Collaborate directly with customers and stakeholders to understand their unique needs and translate those into proportionate and actionable next steps.
Develop domain expertise in AI development workflows and frontier model training
Respond quickly to customer queries and technical challenges, working in the open with the team, owning problems and their solutions
Work across shared repositories with other tech teams writing clean, maintainable code while maintaining customer-specific focus
Contribute to the design, implementation, and maintenance of product features, using agile development practices to plan and deliver work as a team
Help to support production systems and respond to incidents when required
Learn how our systems operate from development through to production
Actively participate in team discussions, retrospectives, and knowledge sharing
Continuously develop your technical and product understanding
Collaborate effectively with UK-based teams across time zones
Pushing the boundaries, questioning the status quo, ensuring what we are doing and what we are building has high value and impact for our users
Key Technologies
Cloud Platforms: Google Cloud Platform and AWS
Programming Languages: Python, JavaScript, and TypeScript
Frameworks: Vue.js, Django Rest Framework, Container-based and Serverless architectures
Databases: MongoDB and DynamoDB
DevOps and Monitoring: CircleCI, GitHub Actions, Kubernetes, Celery, EventBridge and DataDog
Why Prolific is a great place to work
We've built a unique platform that connects researchers and companies with a global pool of participants, enabling the collection of high-quality, ethically sourced human behavioral data and feedback. This data is the cornerstone of developing more accurate, nuanced, and aligned AI systems.
We believe that the next leap in AI capabilities won't come solely from scaling existing models, but from integrating diverse human perspectives and behaviors into AI development. By providing this crucial human data infrastructure, Prolific is positioning itself at the forefront of the next wave of AI innovation – one that reflects the breath and the best of humanity.
Join us to enjoy a competitive salary, benefits, and remote working within our impactful, mission-driven culture. At Prolific, our compensation packages for eligible roles include base salary, equity, and benefits. Many roles also include the opportunity to earn a cash variable element, such as a bonus or commission. Each job posting shows a salary range that reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hires, based on the role’s location as well as your skills, experience, and relevant education or training. You can check the job posting’s subtitle to see where the position is based. Your recruiter will also be happy to share the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.
For pay transparency, the base salary range for this full-time role in San Francisco is $200,000 - $250,000 per annum.
By submitting your application, you agree that Prolific may collect your personal data for recruiting and global organisation planning. Prolific's Candidate Privacy Notice explains what personal information Prolific may process, where Prolific may process your personal information, its purposes for processing your personal information, and the rights you can exercise over Prolific use of your personal information.
About Prolific
Prolific helps dedicated research teams to collect the very highest-quality human-powered data - at scale - using our simple-to-use platform to target and manage participants from our diverse, vetted participant pool.
The truth matters: the best decisions, and biggest discoveries, are built on the highest-quality data. And with the increasing proliferation of AI, access to reliable, diverse data to develop and train AI models has never been more important.
Created by researchers for researchers, Prolific was founded to provide a better way for researchers and organisations to get high-quality human data and feedback at scale for important research.
Now, more than 30,000 researchers across academia and industry use Prolific to gather definitive human data and feedback from reliable, engaged and fairly-treated participants – with a new study launched every 3 minutes.
