Lead AI Engineer – Enterprise, Data & AI

Zoox is hiring a Lead AI Engineer – Enterprise, Data & AI in Foster City, United States. It pays $230k-$300k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Zoox.

Level's read on this job

Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this AI engineer role: the job is building AI systems.
The listed pay starts 25% above the typical AI engineer posting on Level.
Tools and skills the posting cites include OpenAI, Claude and LangChain.
Level classifies it as a lead role.
Level lists 238 other open roles at Zoox.

AI in this role

OpenAIClaudeLangChainLlamaIndexBedrockVertex AIPineconeWeaviateMilvus

ai-agentsai-automation

Zoox is seeking a highly motivated, hands-on Lead AI Engineer to spearhead the end-to-end development and deployment of our Enterprise Gen AI and LLM initiatives, building agentic workflows, integrating enterprise data sources, and enforcing identity-aware security, that transform operations across Procurement, Supply Chain, Legal, Finance, HR and Manufacturing (MES).

In this role, you will:

Design and deploy production-grade LLM applications and intelligent agents capable of complex reasoning, secure tool usage and autonomous multi-step workflows.
Architect enterprise data/tool integrations using MCP servers, establishing standardized, reusable connectors across Procurement, Supply Chain, Legal, Finance, HR and Manufacturing (MES).
Enforce security guardrails via AI gateways - authentication, rate-limiting, logging and policy compliance for all model/agent traffic.
Implement identity inheritance via SSO, ensuring agents act strictly within the requesting user's permissions & privileges (no privilege escalation, no standing overreach).
Work with the Information Security team on access control (RBAC/ABAC) for agentic systems and establish observability standards for agent behavior and data access.
Partner with cross-functional teams to build secure, code-driven AI automation.

Qualifications:

10+ years in Data/Software Engineering, with 2+ years deploying GenAI/LLMs in production.
Deep Python proficiency; experience with LangChain, LlamaIndex or provider-native orchestration (e.g., Claude Agent SDK, OpenAI Assistants/Agents SDK or hand-rolled).
Hands-on experience building/integrating MCP servers or comparable connector frameworks.
Experienced in AI gateway solutions (e.g. Cloudflare AI Gateway) for governing agent traffic.
Working knowledge of SSO/identity federation (SAML, OIDC, OAuth 2.0) and propagating identity through agentic tool calls.
Experience with cloud AI services (AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI) and vector databases (MongoDB, Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus, OpenSearch).

Bonus Qualifications:

Experience building AI solutions for corporate functions like Finance, Legal (e.g. contract analysis), HR (e.g. policy retrieval), Supply Chain (e.g. forecasting efficiency) or Manufacturing (e.g., MES data integration, production/quality analytics)
Familiarity with AI platform vendor evaluations (Bedrock, Vertex, Cortex, etc.)
Experience defining enterprise IAM integration patterns (Okta, Entra ID, Ping) for AI systems and establishing AI governance frameworks or centers of excellence
Previous experience in the autonomous vehicle, robotics or high-tech manufacturing sectors.

About ZooxZoox is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market. Sitting at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and design, Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. We’re looking for top talent that shares our passion and wants to be part of a fast-moving and highly execution-oriented team.
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AccommodationsIf you need an accommodation to participate in the application or interview process please reach out to accommodations@zoox.com or your assigned recruiter.
A Final Note:You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Zoox, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

How we rate this

Lead AI Engineer – Enterprise, Data & AI at Zoox rates 87 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Lead AI Engineer – Enterprise, Data & AI is an open job at Zoox.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $230k-$300k a year.
The role is based in Foster City, CA.
The job was posted on September 21, 2026.
Seniority: lead.
Applications are handled by Zoox. Apply on Zoox

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

AI agentsAI AutomationOpenAIClaudeLangChainLlamaIndexBedrockVertex AI

Also common in AI engineer jobs at this level

Azure RAG Google Cloud PyTorch MLOps Java

Pay

This job starts at: $230k
Typical AI engineer job: $184k

This posting starts 25% above the typical AI engineer job. See AI engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
Tell me about a workflow you automated with AI tools, end to end.
What are the limits of OpenAI that you've run into, and how did you work around them?
What's a project where you used Claude hands-on?
Walk me through how you've used LangChain in your day-to-day work.

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: AI agents, AI Automation, OpenAI, Claude, and LangChain. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

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