or apply directly on DigitalOcean's site. We never take the application ourselves.
Is this posting real?
- This role has been open
- 87 days DigitalOcean's roles stay open a median of 87 days
- Reposted
- No
- Salary listed
- Yes 68% of DigitalOcean's roles list one
- Ghost-job risk at DigitalOcean
- high 151 stale, 1 reposted of 151 open
- Hiring momentum
- 197 roles opened in the last 90 days ↑ up vs. the prior 90 days
- Last confirmed on the employer's board
- 2026-10-29
Measured from postings appearing on and disappearing from DigitalOcean's own greenhouse board since 2026-08-03. Full hiring picture for DigitalOcean.
About this role
As a Staff Software Engineer in AI/ML at DigitalOcean, you'll lead the technical direction for feedback-driven learning in agentic AI systems. Your role involves defining research agendas, building production learning systems, and running large-scale experiments to enhance user experience. You'll also provide technical leadership and collaborate with various teams to transition prototypes into shipped capabilities.
- benefits
- 3/5
- freshness
- 1/5
- career value
- 5/5
- role clarity
- 4/5
- pay transparency
- 5/5
Scored from the posting itself — how clearly the role is described, how much it says about pay and benefits, and how recently it was listed. Not a judgement of DigitalOcean as an employer.
What you need
- 8+ years of experience building production AI/ML systems
- Hands-on experience improving AI systems through reinforcement learning, reward modeling, fine-tuning, human feedback, or preference optimization
- Strong understanding of agentic AI: reasoning, planning, tool use, action execution, instruction following, and self-correction
- Strong software engineering in Python and at least one production systems language
- Judgment to balance model quality, product impact, latency, reliability, cost, and maintainability
Nice to have
- Experience with agent evaluation, offline/online experiments, and human feedback loops in production
- Direct experience with RLHF, RLAIF, DPO, PPO, GRPO, or related optimization techniques
- Prior Staff, Senior Staff, Tech Lead, or equivalent senior IC experience
- Master's or PhD in CS, ML, AI, or a related field
- Experience with production ML infrastructure: model serving, observability, data pipelines, feature stores, or experimentation platforms
What you get
- Flexible time off
- Local team meetups
- Mental health and well-being support
- Reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education
- Equity compensation opportunities
- Participation in DigitalOcean’s annual bonus plan
Worth weighing
- No specific mention of the tech stack used beyond Python and production systems language
- The role is hybrid, which may require in-office presence depending on location
- Vague details on the exact nature of the 'cutting-edge technology' and 'high-growth trajectory'
Summarised from DigitalOcean's posting. Read the full original.
Listed by DigitalOcean on their greenhouse job board, last confirmed open on 2026-10-29. PitchMeAI is not the employer.
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