Staff Software Engineer - AI Platform Team

About Us:

Proofpoint is a global leader in human- and agent-centric cybersecurity. We protect how people, data, and AI agents connect across email, cloud, and collaboration tools. Over 80 of the Fortune 100, 10,000 large enterprises, and millions of smaller organizations trust Proofpoint to stop threats, prevent data loss, and build resilience across their people and AI workflows. Our mission is simple: safeguard the digital world and empower people to work securely and confidently. Join us in our pursuit to defend data and protect people.

How We Work:

At Proofpoint you’ll be part of a global team that breaks barriers to redefine cybersecurity guided by our BRAVE core values: 

Bold in how we dream and innovate

Responsive to feedback, challenges and opportunities

Accountable for results and best in class outcomes

Visionary in future focused problem-solving

Exceptional in execution and impact

The Role

As a Staff Software Engineer on our Satori AI Platform team, you will drive the architecture of the internal platform that every Proofpoint product team uses to build agentic applications — spanning AI-assisted development, evaluation-based release gates, OpenTelemetry observability for agents in production, and cross-product AuthX for AI workloads. Your direct users are fellow product engineers, and the products they ship protect business-critical communications for Fortune 100 customers 24/7/365. The patterns and primitives you set will define how mission-critical agentic software ships across the company. This is a uniquely-challenging role: we empower small teams to make large impacts, the systems are inherently non-deterministic, and the bar for what we ship to product teams is high.

Your day-to-day

• Set architectural direction for one or more platform pillars: AI-assisted developer workflows, eval-driven release gates, OpenTelemetry for LLM/agent traffic, cross-product AuthX, etc.

• Design agent runtimes and SDKs on frameworks like LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, Anthropic's Agent SDK, and MCP, in Python (typed) and TypeScript/Node

• Define what "release-ready" means for an agent at Proofpoint: the eval suites, safety checks, telemetry, and AuthX contracts that gate every rollout

• Partner with product team tech leads across the org to land your architecture in their stacks; turn one-off integrations into reusable platform capabilities

• Drive the standards for prompt management, model selection, cost/latency budgets, and observability across products
  Design, code, review, test, and deploy software features in our application stack — Staff engineers at Proofpoint still write code

• Mentor engineers across the platform and product teams; raise the company-wide bar for what production agentic software looks like

What you bring to the team

• Prior experience taking agentic or LLM-based systems to production — not just prototypes — including the eval, observability, and rollback story

• Deep experience with Python (typed) and/or TypeScript/Node, plus an opinion on which belongs where in the Satori AI Platform

• Hands-on work with agent frameworks (LangGraph, OpenAI/Anthropic Agents SDK, MCP, LangChain) and eval tooling (LangSmith, Braintrust, promptfoo, or similar)

• Strong fluency with OpenTelemetry, including the GenAI semantic conventions, and a track record of debugging distributed systems from traces

• Ability to see the big picture, collaborate with cross-product teams, and drive architectural conversations

• Experience designing, developing, and supporting applications in a microservices cloud environment

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills — you can convince another team's tech lead to adopt your platform

• Passion, curiosity, integrity, and outstanding attention to detail while performing tasks

• A "get it done" attitude consistent with a team where everyone writes code

• A B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience

Why Proofpoint?

At Proofpoint, we believe that an exceptional career experience includes a comprehensive compensation and benefits package. Here are just a few reasons you’ll love working with us:

• Competitive compensation

• Comprehensive benefits

• Career success on your terms

• Flexible work environment

• Annual wellness and community outreach days

• Always on recognition for your contributions

• Global collaboration and networking opportunities

Our Culture:

Our culture is rooted in values that inspire belonging, empower purpose and drive success-every day, for everyone.

We encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. If you need accommodation during the application or interview process, please reach out to [email protected].

How to Apply

Interested? Submit your application along with any supporting information- we can’t wait to hear from you!

Consistent with Proofpoint values and applicable law, we provide the following information to promote pay transparency and equity. Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several U.S. geographic markets, and we pay differently based on those defined markets as set out below. Pay within these ranges varies and depends on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The actual offer will be based on the individual candidate. The range provided may represent a candidate range and may not reflect the full range for an individual tenured employee. This role may be eligible for variable compensation and/or equity. We offer a competitive benefits package, including flexible time off, a comprehensive well-being program with two paid Wellbeing Days and two paid Volunteer Days per year, plus a three-week Work from Anywhere option.

Base Pay Ranges:

SF Bay Area, New York City Metro Area:

California (excludes SF Bay Area), Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Washington DC Metro, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, Washington, Virginia, and Alaska:

All other cities and states excluding those listed above: