Industry R&D
Software Engineer, Public Sector - New Grad
Scale AI
San Francisco, CA
Description
At Scale, our mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions. For 10 years, Scale has provided the high-quality data and full-stack technologies that power the world's leading models, and has helped enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications that deliver real impact. We work closely with industry leaders like Meta, Ernst & Young, Mayo Clinic, Time Inc., the Government of Qatar, and U.S. government agencies including the Army and Air Force.
Public Sector engineers build the core product including the systems required to ingest and process federal datasets that support real-time decision-making in contested environments. As a New Grad Software Engineer on this team, you will own meaningful, mission-facing work from day one: shipping features, sitting with the government stakeholders who use them, and iterating fast.
Example Projects
- Build multi-layered guardrails that keep agents safe and predictable in high-stakes federal environments
- Optimize data retrieval for agents, including RAG pipelines over large, heterogeneous federal datasets
- Build orchestration for fleets of asynchronous agents running long-horizon tasks
- Develop systems that automatically alert users to deviations and anomalies in incoming data
- Create interfaces that illustrate how an agent reached a decision, so operators can audit and trust its output
- Develop data pipelines and ML infrastructure that make previously siloed government data sources accessible to agents
- Build evaluation infrastructure that measures model reliability against mission requirements
- Ship full-stack tooling that lets analysts query, visualize, and explore mission data
- Deploy and harden applications into secure, air-gapped, and cloud-native government environments
Requirements
- A graduation date in Fall 2026 or Spring 2027 with a Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in a relevant field (Computer Science, EECS, Computer Engineering, Statistics)
- Product engineering experience such as building web apps full-stack, integrating with relevant APIs and services, talking to users, figuring out 'what' to build and then iterating
- Previous Product/Software Engineering internship experience
- Track record of shipping high-quality products and features at scale
- Experience building systems that process large volumes of data
- Experience with Python, Typescript, React, and/or MongoDB
- Strong written and verbal communication — you will work directly with government stakeholders and must be able to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences
- Comfort with ambiguity and evolving requirements, and a willingness to learn new domains quickly
Nice to Have
- Hands-on experience with LLMs, evaluations, or agentic systems — whether from internships, research, or personal projects
- Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), containerization (Docker), and orchestration (Kubernetes)
- Exposure to ETL, data modeling, data warehousing, or data governance
- Prior experience with, or demonstrated interest in, national security, defense, or civil government technology
- Open source contributions or a portfolio of shipped side projects
How We Work
Our credos shape how we make decisions and work as a team:
- Earn Customer Love — trust is earned with every interaction, every delivery, and every problem we solve
- Team Flow — ideas, energy, and support move freely across teams; optimize for the whole
- Quality is Our Cheat Code — the systems that deliver quality consistently are a structural advantage
- Find the 20% — find the inputs that drive the outcomes and execute them completely
- Write the Market — our research puts us at the frontier, and we bring our partners there first
- Three Moves Ahead — consider the consequences of consequences, and plan accordingly
Compensation packages at Scale for eligible roles include base salary, equity, and benefits. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position and may be inclusive of several career levels at Scale; it will be determined during the interview process based on work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, qualifications, interview performance, and relevant education or training. Scale employees in eligible roles are also granted equity based compensation, subject to Board of Director approval. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process, and confirm whether the hired role will be eligible for equity grant. You'll also receive benefits including, but not limited to: comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, a learning and development stipend, and generous PTO. Additionally, this role may be eligible for additional benefits such as a commuter stipend.
PLEASE NOTE: Our policy requires a 90-day waiting period before reconsidering candidates for the same role. This allows us to ensure a fair and thorough evaluation of all applicants.
About Us:
At Scale, our mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions. Our products provide the high-quality data and full-stack technologies that power the world's leading models, and help enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications that deliver real impact. We work closely with industry leaders like Meta, Ernst & Young, Mayo Clinic, Time Inc., the Government of Qatar, and U.S. government agencies including the Army and Air Force. We are expanding our team to accelerate the development of AI applications.
We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, which is why we are proud to be an inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability status, gender identity or Veteran status.
We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation in the application or recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at accommodations@scale.com. Please see the United States Department of Labor's Know Your Rights poster for additional information.
We comply with the United States Department of Labor's Pay Transparency provision.
PLEASE NOTE: We collect, retain and use personal data for our professional business purposes, including notifying you of job opportunities that may be of interest and sharing with our affiliates. We limit the personal data we collect to that which we believe is appropriate and necessary to manage applicants’ needs, provide our services, and comply with applicable laws. Any information we collect in connection with your application will be treated in accordance with our internal policies and programs designed to protect personal data. Please see our privacy policy for additional information.