Senior AI Engineer (Reinforcement Learning & Ad Optimization) - AI-Native Growth Engine

About the job

This role is being recruited by CoffeeSpace on behalf of an anonymous AI-native growth engine startup that replaces the entire media buying stack with autonomous digital workers for marketing teams.

We’re identifying a small number of exceptional AI engineers from our network. If there’s a strong fit, we’ll introduce you directly to the founding team.

Location: San Francisco, California, United States

Compensation: $200K - $300K base + competitive equity

Employment type: Full-time

Visa: Visa sponsorship considered for exceptional candidates

About the company

This company builds an AI-native growth engine designed to automate the entire media buying process for marketing teams. It operates across platforms like Meta, Google, TikTok, and Snapchat, managing real ad spend and optimizing campaign strategies. Founded in 2023, the company has secured $10 million in funding and employs a team of about 20 people spread across four offices on three continents.

The team is led by technical founders who are deeply involved in the product development process, ensuring a flat organizational structure and direct mentorship.

About the role

You will own the intelligence layer of the company's Learn Engine, focusing on decision-making processes that directly impact campaign outcomes. This involves designing recommendation and scoring systems, defining learning loops, and writing optimization policies.

You will work with technologies such as Python, machine learning, and reinforcement learning to build systems that optimize ad spend and improve over time.

What You’ll Do

• Build decision engines for bid changes, budget reallocation, and other campaign optimizations.
• Design learning loops to enhance campaign strategies based on outcomes.
• Write optimization policies over noisy live data, employing rule-based and reinforcement learning strategies.
• Orchestrate agents to reason over campaign context and evaluate their outputs.
• Own the decision quality and financial returns of the campaigns.

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Why This Role Is Compelling

• Work on a platform that manages live ad spend, providing rapid feedback on your strategies.
• Collaborate directly with the CTO, who is hands-on and reviews every profile.
• Enjoy a high degree of autonomy to solve problems your way, with no micromanagement.
• Engage in quant-style work applied to ad spend without the traditional quant firm environment.

The Ideal Candidate

• 3+ years of experience in AI engineering, with a focus on machine learning and reinforcement learning.
• Strong skills in Python and experience with recommendation systems and ad optimization.

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• Ability to design and implement decision-making processes in complex environments.
• Comfortable with owning decision quality and financial outcomes.

Next steps

• 1. Apply via this LinkedIn job post
• 2. We’ll review and reach out if there’s a strong match
• 3. If aligned, we’ll introduce you directly to the team
• 4. If this role isn’t the right fit, we may suggest and make introductions to other high-signal startup roles we’re recruiting for, always with your permission.

A quick note on authenticity

This is a real, active role that CoffeeSpace is recruiting for in close partnership with the hiring team. We don’t post speculative roles and work directly with teams on their actual hiring needs.