Applied AI Engineer

OpenRouter $215K - $280K/year Posted about 3 hours ago 100% remote US only US (remote) About The Role About OpenRouter OpenRouter is the AI routing and infrastructure layer that AI builders, AI-native startups, and enterprises use to access, manage, and optimize their AI usage through a unified API, billing interface, and analytics platform. We route billions of tokens every month and sit at the center of how organizations operationalize LLMs across research, product, and production workloads. We are a small team that punches above its weight. Every person here has direct impact on the product and our users. About The Role We're hiring two Applied AI Engineers to build the internal agentic tooling that runs OpenRouter — one focused on support, one focused on go-to-market. The two roles operate the same way; the difference is which domain you go deep on. We believe we can build software that fits our needs rather than buy software built for the masses. The best technical companies built proprietary tools, and you'll have the chance to do that at OpenRouter. This is not a zero-to-one role. The first 80% is easy. Getting the last 20% right — reliability, edge cases, the unglamorous finishing work — and earning adoption across a team that has other options is the actual job. What You'll Do Build internal agentic workflows end-to-end on OpenRouter, from prototype to production, that automate support and GTM operationsIntegrate our systems with the tools the company runs on, and steadily replace those tools where it makes sense toOwn the reliability of what you ship: evals, guardrails, and monitoring, so automation is trustworthy rather than flashyDrive measurable impact — deflect support volume, accelerate GTM motions, cut manual toil — and prove it with dataWork directly with support, GTM, and engineering to find the highest-leverage workflows to automate nextIterate on real usage: ship, measure, improve What We're Looking For Build-over-buy conviction. You build on internal tools first and champion them over polished external options, even when the internal path is slightly more painful. You buy only for genuine expertise, never for something buildable in a day.You push the last 20%. You've worked on internally-built tooling and made it good enough that people chose it. You're energized by reliability, edge cases, and polish, and you don't delegate the hard part.Domain fluency in support or GTM. Hands-on with ticketing, CRM, sales ops, or customer-facing workflows, so you know which work is actually worth automating.Architectural range. You understand systems end-to-end and can jump into any part of one. Deep backend orientation; front-end work is not the point here.A security mindset. You'll be building integrations with broad internal access. You think about permissions, blast radius, and the second-order effects of what an agent is about to do before it does it.Evals and data rigor. You measure automation impact quantitatively rather than asserting it.Excellence, time-boxed. A near-perfect bar, but disciplined enough to ship rather than polish forever. Nice To Haves Experience across three or more agent harnesses. We don't need expertise in any one of them; we want to see that you've tried things.You've built your own agent harness for a workflowProduction LLM/agentic systems shipped with strong engineering fundamentalsOpen-source contributions to dev tooling or agent frameworks If you don't think you meet all of the criteria below but still are interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box, and we're looking for someone who is excited to join the team. Skills Backend AI LLMs Agents Backend Automation Integration How to apply Apply directly on the employer's apply-click#track" data-apply-click-url-value="/jobs/396-applied-ai-engineer/apply_clicks" data-apply-click-placement-value="prose" data-apply-click-target-value="url" data-apply-click-token-value="eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6eyJqIjozOTYsIm4iOiJKQXRXUFhWQ1VWckxIU3lVIiwidCI6MTc4NzI0MDcxMjYwNX0sImV4cCI6IjIwMjYtMDgtMjFUMDM6NDU6MTIuNjA1WiIsInB1ciI6ImFwcGx5X2NsaWNrIn19--29674282158bcfa21bf80c7d866057a3acc8435c" href="https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/openrouter/407f71b5-4b1f-4666-91bd-394f3c26f19d/application">application page. Your application goes straight to them. Republished listing This opportunity was discovered on OpenRouter's public careers page and is republished here for discovery purposes. Applications are handled by the employer. OpenRouter team? Claim this listing or ask us to remove it. Apply Apply for this role You'll be taken to the employer's own application page. Apply for this position apply-click#track" data-apply-click-url-value="/jobs/396-applied-ai-engineer/apply_clicks" data-apply-click-placement-value="card" data-apply-click-target-value="url" data-apply-click-token-value="eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6eyJqIjozOTYsIm4iOiJKQXRXUFhWQ1VWckxIU3lVIiwidCI6MTc4NzI0MDcxMjYwNX0sImV4cCI6IjIwMjYtMDgtMjFUMDM6NDU6MTIuNjA1WiIsInB1ciI6ImFwcGx5X2NsaWNrIn19--29674282158bcfa21bf80c7d866057a3acc8435c" href="https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/openrouter/407f71b5-4b1f-4666-91bd-394f3c26f19d/application">Apply now Get new roles as they land Hand-picked remote roles, every one with a published salary. Three or four issues a month, not a daily drip. Used for the digest only: see the privacy policy. Email address Website Prefer your timeline? Follow @forcepullhq on X Job Overview Salary $215K - $280K/year Location Remote US only US (remote) Type Full time Level Mid Posted Aug 20, 2026 OpenRouter View company & all roles Curated by Forcepull This role was curated by the Forcepull team. We hand-picked it because we think it's a great opportunity from a company we respect.