Staff Engineer AI

Location: This is an onsite role based at Nextiva’s Bengaluru office (Wilshire III by MFAR, 492, Hobli, RHB Colony, Mahadevapura, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560048). Working together onsite strengthens how we operate, enabling faster decisions, clearer communication, and stronger execution, so you can make a greater impact and move work forward with speed and clarity. 

In-Office Expectation: This role is expected to work onsite four days per week, with the potential to increase to five days per week, as required by the business. Specific scheduling and flexibility will be guided by your leader to support both team collaboration and individual productivity. 

The Staff Engineer – AI is a hands-on individual contributor role for an experienced engineer with deep technical expertise in Python, distributed systems, system design, and AI-powered applications. This role will play a key part in designing, building, and launching new AI capabilities while collaborating across Nextiva engineering teams and with external technology partners.

As a Staff Engineer, you will operate at the intersection of hands-on engineering, system design, and early-stage technical solutioning. You will take ownership of new capabilities from initial technical discussions through architecture, development, production readiness, and launch.

This is not an architecture-only role. We are looking for an engineer who stays close to the code, builds alongside the team, and can translate complex or ambiguous technical problems into scalable production solutions.

You will work on initiatives involving NextIQ, including collaboration with the Google Gemini team to bring capabilities developed within Nextiva into partner environments. You will also partner closely with Nextiva product and engineering teams in the U.S. and other locations, including teams working on NextOS, to extend NextIQ capabilities across the Nextiva ecosystem.

This role is ideal for an engineer who enjoys solving ambiguous problems, building new capabilities from the ground up, and taking end-to-end technical ownership while remaining a deeply hands-on individual contributor.

We are seeking a Staff Engineer – AI to accelerate Nextiva’s AI initiatives and help deliver exceptional customer experiences through a unified, modern platform powered by AI and automation.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and launch scalable AI-focused engineering capabilities, services, and modules.
• Own complex engineering initiatives end to end, from early-stage technical solutioning and system design through implementation, production readiness, and launch.
• Remain deeply hands-on with software development and contribute high-quality production code.
• Build robust services and platforms using Python and strong distributed-systems engineering principles.
• Lead and contribute to system design, architecture, and technical solutioning discussions across engineering teams.
• Work closely with the Google Gemini team on initiatives that bring NextIQ capabilities into Gemini and related partner experiences.
• Collaborate with external technology partners to integrate and extend Nextiva capabilities into their platforms and environments.
• Partner with U.S.-based and global Nextiva product and engineering teams on new AI initiatives.
• Collaborate with teams supporting NextOS to extend NextIQ capabilities across the broader Nextiva ecosystem.
• Navigate ambiguous, early-stage technical problems and translate them into practical, scalable engineering solutions.
• Identify technical risks, trade-offs, and dependencies and drive decisions that enable teams to move quickly and effectively.
• Establish strong engineering practices around scalability, reliability, observability, testing, and production readiness.
• Take accountability for successfully designing, building, launching, and evolving the capabilities you own.

Requirements

Basic Qualifications

• 9 –15+ years of relevant software engineering experience, with significant hands-on experience designing, building, and delivering production software.
• Deep hands-on expertise in Python and modern software engineering practices.
• Strong system design and architecture capabilities.
• Strong experience designing and building distributed systems and scalable backend services.
• Demonstrated experience owning and launching complex software modules, services, or platform capabilities end to end.
• Experience taking technical initiatives from initial solutioning and design through development, production deployment, and launch.
• Ability and willingness to remain deeply hands-on with coding at the Staff Engineer level.
• Experience influencing architecture and technical direction across teams without relying on formal authority.
• Ability to evaluate technical trade-offs and make pragmatic engineering decisions in ambiguous environments.
• Experience working on new initiatives where requirements, architecture, and technical approaches may still be evolving.
• Strong collaboration skills and the ability to work effectively with internal engineering teams, product teams, and external technology partners.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with globally distributed teams, including regular partnership with teams based in the United States.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience operating as a Staff Engineer or equivalent senior individual contributor in a product or technology organization.
• Experience building new products, platforms, modules, or technical capabilities from the ground up.
• Experience combining system-level architecture responsibilities with significant hands-on implementation.
• Experience building or integrating AI/ML, generative AI, LLM, or agentic AI capabilities into production applications.
• Experience integrating applications with modern AI platforms, APIs, or foundation models.
• Experience collaborating directly with external technology partners on complex integrations.
• Experience working across globally distributed engineering organizations.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers and raising engineering standards through technical leadership and influence.

AI & Modern Engineering Expectations

• Use AI-assisted engineering tools as part of day-to-day development to improve productivity and accelerate coding, debugging, testing, documentation, and engineering workflows.
• Apply strong engineering judgment to AI-generated code and recommendations, including appropriate validation, testing, security review, and technical assessment.
• Understand how AI capabilities can be integrated into larger products, platforms, and partner environments while maintaining scalable and reliable system design.
• Understand the engineering considerations involved in taking AI-powered capabilities from experimentation to production.
• Stay current with evolving generative AI, LLM, agentic AI, and AI-assisted software engineering practices and apply them where they improve engineering effectiveness or customer outcomes.
• Contribute directly to AI initiatives involving NextIQ and partner environments such as Google Gemini.
• Help establish engineering patterns and practices that enable Nextiva teams to build AI-powered capabilities safely, reliably, and at scale.

Additional Qualities

• Strong sense of ownership and accountability.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguous environments and solving early-stage technical challenges.
• Able to move seamlessly between high-level system design and hands-on implementation.
• Strong problem-solving and technical decision-making skills.
• Pragmatic approach to architecture and engineering trade-offs.
• Collaborative approach to working across engineering, product, and external partner teams.
• Ability to influence technical direction across teams as a senior individual contributor.
• Ability to take ownership of a capability through design, build, launch, and ongoing evolution.
• Self-directed and comfortable operating with significant autonomy.

Nextiva DNA

Nextiva’s most successful team members share common traits and behaviors:

• Drives Results: Action-oriented problem solvers who quickly bring clarity and simplicity to ambiguity, challenge the status quo, and lead meaningful change; celebrating wins to fuel momentum. They act swiftly and pragmatically, learning and improving as they go.
• Critical Thinker: Data-driven, forward-thinking individuals who identify key drivers, anticipate risks, and deliver clear recommendations. They confidently leverage AI and automation to reduce friction, improve decision-making, and focus on higher-value work.
• Right Attitude: Collaborative, competitive, and resilient team players who jump in to solve tough problems, learn from setbacks, and foster a culture of service, respect, and care for customers and teammates.

Total Rewards

At Nextiva, our Total Rewards programs are designed to support the well-being, growth, and success of our employees.

Compensation for this role will be determined based on factors including relevant skills, experience, qualifications, and the scope of the position. Nextiva strives to provide competitive compensation and benefits aligned with the local market.

Eligible employees in India have access to benefits and programs designed to support their health, well-being, professional development, and work-life balance, in accordance with Nextiva’s India policies and applicable local requirements.

At Nextiva, we're committed to creating an environment where employees can do their best work, continue developing their careers, and contribute to building the future of customer experience.

Nextiva DNA (Core Competencies)

Nextiva’s most successful team members share common traits and behaviors:

• Drives Results: Action-oriented problem solvers who quickly bring clarity and simplicity to ambiguity, challenge the status quo, and lead meaningful change; celebrating wins to fuel momentum. They act swiftly and pragmatically, learning and improving as they go.
• Critical Thinker: Data-driven, forward-thinking individuals who identify key drivers, anticipate risks, and deliver clear recommendations. They confidently leverage AI and automation to reduce friction, improve decision-making, and focus on higher-value work.
• Right Attitude: Collaborative, competitive, and resilient team players who jump in to solve tough problems, learn from setbacks, and foster a culture of service, respect, and care for customers and teammates.

Total Rewards

Our Total Rewards offerings are designed to allow our employees to take care of themselves and their families so they can be their best, in and out of the office.

Our compensation packages are tailored to each role and candidate's qualifications. We consider a wide range of factors, including skills, experience, training, and certifications, when determining compensation. We aim to offer competitive salaries or wages that reflect the value you bring to our team. Depending on the position, compensation may include base salary and/or hourly wages, incentives, or bonuses.

• Medical 🩺 - Medical insurance coverage is available for employees, their spouse, and up to two dependent children with a limit of 500,000 INR, as well as their parents or in-laws for up to 300,000 INR. This comprehensive coverage ensures that essential healthcare needs are met for the entire family unit, providing peace of mind and security in times of medical necessity.
• Group Term & Group Personal Accident Insurance 💼 - Provides insurance coverage against the risk of death / injury during the policy period sustained due to an accident caused by violent, visible & external means.
  • Coverage Type - Employee Only
  • Sum Insured - 3 times of annual CTC with minimum cap of INR 10,00,000
  • Free Cover Limit - 1.5 Crore
• Work-Life Balance ⚖️ - 15 days of Privilege leaves per calendar year, 6 days of Paid Sick leave per calendar year, 6 days of Casual leave per calendar year. Paid 26 weeks of Maternity leaves, 1 week of Paternity leave, a day off on your Birthday, and paid holidays
• Financial Security💰 - Provident Fund & Gratuity
• Wellness 🤸‍ - Employee Assistance Program and comprehensive wellness initiatives
• Growth 🌱 - Access to ongoing learning and development opportunities and career advancement

At Nextiva, we're committed to supporting our employees' health, well-being, and professional growth. Join us and build a rewarding career! 

Beware of Recruitment Fraud: At Nextiva, we follow a merit-based hiring process and do not charge any fees or require a deposit at any stage.  We also do not authorize any third parties to collect payments or sensitive information on our behalf. 

All genuine communications from Nextiva originate from official email addresses ending in “@nextiva.com”.  Communications received from free email services (such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail) purporting to be from Nextiva should be treated as fraudulent.  If you are contacted by a third-party claiming to represent us, please verify their credentials by writing to talent@nextiva.com. 

We encourage candidates to stay vigilant and verify the authenticity of any communication claiming to be from Nextiva, including unsolicited calls, WhatsApp messages and Telegram communications. While we strive to maintain a secure hiring process, Nextiva is not responsible for any losses arising from fraudulent activities. If you believe that you have been a victim of recruitment fraud, please contact your law enforcement agencies immediately.

For genuine opportunities, please apply only through our official career sites: Nextiva Careers & Nextiva Jobs on LinkedIn.

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