Level

Cursor

Software Engineer, Model Lifecycle and Signals

Cursor is hiring a Software Engineer, Model Lifecycle and Signals in New York, United States. Level rates it ; you can apply on Level.

AI in this role

grok

SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today, SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of making life multiplanetary and expanding consciousness to the stars.

SpaceXSI is building Super Intelligence to help humanity understand the universe. Our teams are building the full Super Intelligence stack: from our Colossus supercomputers, to Grok models, to our suite of applications, including Grok Bot, Grok Build, Grok Imagine, Grok Voice, and X. We're creating a powerful flywheel where more compute trains better models, better models power more useful products, and what we learn from people using those products shapes what we build next.

About the Role

As a Software Engineer on the Model Lifecycle and Signals team at SpaceXAI, you'll own the bridge between frontier models and every user facingCursor product, used at a scale few teams ever see. You'll decide when we use which model, spot where models go off track and build the guardrails to keep them on it, and shape what the next generation of models should learn.

This role sits at the intersection of infrastructure, data, and product. You'll bring models from preview to production, dig into real-world data to find out what's actually working, and partner with research, inference, product, and data science teams to turn that evidence into better products and better models.

Every improvement you make compounds across our products and every model we ship.

What you'll work on

  • Get new frontier models into users' hands the day they're ready, and retire old ones without anyone noticing.

  • Evaluate internal and external preview models before launch and give meaningful feedback to the teams building them.

  • Build Cursor Router: decide which model handles each request, balancing quality, speed, and cost at massive scale.

  • Build the eyes and ears of the product, and the experimentation platform that puts them to work: signals that show where each model shines, where it goes off track, and what 'better' actually means.

You may be a fit if

  • You're an exceptional engineer with a track record of shipping production systems people rely on. You own problems end to end, and you'd rather automate a painful process than repeat it.

  • You've built and operated evaluation, measurement, or model serving systems, such as AI evals, experimentation, ranking/relevance, or routers. You can turn ambiguous "quality" questions into concrete metrics, pipelines, and decisions.

  • You're fluent with data and can collaborate effectively with data scientists and researchers.

  • You have strong taste and real curiosity about model and agent behavior. You try new models the day they come out and have opinions about where each one shines.

Applying

If there appears to be a fit, we'll reach out to schedule 2-3 short technicals. After, we'll schedule an onsite in our office, where you'll work on a small project, discuss ideas, and meet the team.

#LI-DNI

How we rate this

Software Engineer, Model Lifecycle and Signals at Cursor rates 85 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.

  1. ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
  2. ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
  3. ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
  4. ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

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

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Grok

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Pay

Typical software engineer job
$168k

This posting doesn't list pay. Use the typical software engineer figure when pay comes up. See software engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

  1. What's a project where you used Grok hands-on?
  2. How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
  3. Tell me about a time a model underperformed in production. How did you find out, and what did you change?

Adapt your resume

  • List these exact terms on your resume: Grok. 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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