Applied AI Engineer, People
Atomic Machines
- Location
- Onsite (Santa Clara, California · Santa Clara, California)
- Compensation
- $110k - $150k/yr
- Employment
- Full-time
- Level
- Mid Level
About the role
Atomic Machines is building the Matter Compiler, an AI-native manufacturing system for micro-machines. This role serves as the first engineer embedded in the People team, responsible for building AI agents and automations to streamline recruiting, onboarding, and operations while managing the People tech stack and data dashboards.
Skills
Benefits
- Health benefits
Perks
- Equity
Full job details
Atomic Machines is building the Matter Compiler™, the first in a new class of AI-native, all-digital manufacturing systems that build working machines directly from code. The Matter Compiler (MC) is aimed at micro-machines: motors and gears the size of a grain of sand, robots small enough to work inside the body, cooling built directly into the chips that run AI, and the many devices like them that have been waiting on a way to build them. Its first product is PrimeSwitch™, an electromechanical power relay the size of a button battery that carries 150 amps continuous current and opens in 50 microseconds, about a thousand times faster than a conventional contactor. Founded by Jeff Holden — serial entrepreneur, ex-Amazon SVP and Uber’s first Chief Product Officer — the company has raised $250 million to date.
Atomic Machines is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in Emeryville and Santa Clara.
About The Role:
This role reports to the Head of Strategic Growth and can be full-time or contract. You’ll be the first engineer embedded in our People team, working directly with leadership and building agents that reach every corner of the company. As we scale, there’s real opportunity to work across functions and embed with other teams.
Our goal is to build one of the first AI-native People Operations systems inside a scaling technology company. Instead of a large administrative HR organization, we’re building a small, high-leverage People team powered by smart systems, operational excellence, and AI-enabled processes we invent as we go.
Our People team knows our Atomizers (that’s what we call our people) but lacks the technical skills to build systems that scale our people practices. You’ll be the person who turns our ideas into working tools, uncovers redundancy, gets more out of the platforms we already use, and builds AI proficiency across the team. This role is about efficiency, clear metrics, and leaving the team more capable than you found it.
What You’ll Do:
- Build agents and automations. Ship agents and workflows across the employee lifecycle, from recruiting and onboarding to benefits and People Operations.
- Shape our People tech stack. Connect Greenhouse, Metaview, Justworks, Slack, and Google Workspace, define how People data flows between them, and get the most from what we already use.
- Own People metrics and dashboards. Build clear, trusted views of hiring pipeline, time to fill, recruiter capacity, headcount, and organizational health so leaders can make decisions quickly.
- Find redundancy. Map how our team actually works, spot repeated manual steps and tool overlap, and fix them.
- Support a fast-scaling recruiting function. Help us keep up with a high volume of open roles without losing quality or candidate experience.
- Teach AI fluency. Run hands-on sessions, write simple playbooks and build templates so non-technical teammates can use Claude, ChatGPT and agents confidently.
- Keep exploring. Stay on top of new AI tools and practices, test them, and bring forward what's actually useful.
- Handle data responsibly. Treat employee and candidate data with the care and confidentiality it needs.
What You Bring:
- A bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience.
- 1–2 years of experience, including internships or substantial projects, building AI agents or LLM-powered workflows that can scale across an organization.
- Strong proficiency with Claude Code, plus comfort with Python, SQL and APIs.
- Experience building dashboards or reporting from messy data.
- A track record of building efficient, repeatable practices that scale, not one-off scripts.
- The ability to explain technical ideas in plain language to non-engineers, and patience teaching them.
- Curiosity about how teams work, and a habit of asking "why do we do it this way?"
- Good judgment about privacy and handling sensitive information.
Nice to Have:
- Familiarity with both Claude and ChatGPT ecosystems, including MCP connectors, custom GPTs or Projects.
- Experience with workflow tools or BI platforms.
- Interest in people operations, talent, or organizational design.
Why Join:
- You'll build agents that reach every team in the company, with real ownership from day one.
- Your work will shape how a fast-growing deep-tech company hires and supports its people.
- You'll have the space to experiment with the newest AI tools and see your impact right away.
The compensation for this position also includes equity and benefits.
Atomic Machines is an equal opportunity employer that values diversity and does not discriminate based on characteristics protected by applicable law. We are committed to an inclusive interview experience, including for individuals with disabilities. To request an accommodation, contact rc@atomicmachines.com. To help our recruiting team manage application volume and respond to candidates more efficiently, Atomic Machines may use AI-assisted tools.