Senior Applied Research Engineer
Mesa
USD 200k-260k / year + Equity
Posted on Sep 30, 2025
Senior Applied Research Engineer
San Francisco
Sound like a good fit? Email founders@mesa.dev with the first project you’d explore.
Our mission
To build the next generation of purpose-built developer tooling to bend the curve on software quality and development velocity. We are starting with the problem of code review and quality control.
The role
We’re seeking a maker - someone with the curiosity to explore critical ideas and the hardcore software engineering skills to implement and validate those ideas. As an applied researcher you’ll be responsible for finding, building, and validating ideas before the company commits more resources to them.
You’ll be going 0-to-1 on countless features and finding novel ways to apply the latest research on LLMs and traditional software (think Google’s new version control, or Facebook’s code indexer) to a production-ready product.
Our team & investors
We are a lean team with extremely high ownership and autonomy.
Mesa is lead by two repeat founders
Oliver Gilan - co-founder of Antimetal, engineer at Microsoft and Census
Ben Warren - Ex-YC, engineer at Microsoft and Census
In addition to our team, Mesa is backed by top seed investors, including Aditya Agarwal (ex-CTO of Dropbox, early engineer at Facebook), Soleio Cuervo (ex-Head of Design at Dropbox, first designer at Facebook), Ethan Yu (Founder of Motion), and Boris Jabes (CEO & Founder of Census).
Why build The Mesa?
Solve a high-leverage problem: Fixing the software development lifecycle is one of the highest leverage problem in the world. As the demands of software grow, the Software Crisis worsens every year. If you care about developer experience, there’s no better product to work on and team to work with.
Be seen by the world’s greatest builders: Our early investors and users invented search, the feed and the like button. From day 1, your code will empower great builders to create the next big thing.
Build for yourself: Mesa brings together engineering, product, and design in a single collaboration layer. You will use Mesa every day to build and ship software.
You’ll be a good fit if you…
Love to push technical boundaries. As a collaborative developer tool Mesa is deployed on the web, text editors, CLIs, etc. You feel comfortable and excited to build software across tech stacks and domains.
Are driven by product outcomes. You care ultimately about the end-user experience and not just a research paper. You are excited to test and validate the latest ideas in software engineering in a way that’s released as a product feature, open source library, standard, etc.
Are deeply curious. You enjoy autonomy and have endless curiosity about programming and the way engineering teams operate. You have a bunch of tools that you wish existed that don’t.
Want to grind and be recognized. Effort is the only input that is entirely in our control. We stay focused and stay late, because nothing feels better than the recognition that we’ve built something great.
Location
We are based in San Francisco and work in-person every day from our office in South Park. We work from home on weekends.
Compensation & Benefits
Compensation: $200k - $260k, 1% - 3% equity
Healthcare: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision for you and your family
Transportation: We provide a stipend for your commute to the office
Other: We provide free lunch in the office twice a week.