Staff Software Engineer - Internal Efficiency

Lyra is looking for an exceptional Staff Software Engineer to accelerate how Lyra itself works. We care deeply about making a difference in people's lives and hope you do too! Our goal? To embed AI into the daily workflows of teams across the company, from engineering and operations to clinical support functions, so that Lyrians spend less time on repetitive work and more time on what matters: getting people the mental health care they need.

This is not a platform team role at arm's length from its users. You will embed directly with internal teams, sit with them to understand how work actually gets done, identify the highest-leverage opportunities, and then design, build, ship, and iterate on AI-powered solutions in production. You own outcomes, not just code: adoption and measurable efficiency gains are the finish line, not the deploy.

We care deeply about making a difference in people’s lives and hope you do too!

This role can be carried out (hybrid) from our South San Francisco, CA headquarters, OR virtual (remote candidates must be based in the United States).

Responsibilities:

• Embed with internal teams across the company to map their workflows, identify bottlenecks, and scope AI-driven solutions with clear, measurable efficiency outcomes

• Take ownership of the full lifecycle: from discovery and prototyping through deployment, adoption, measurement, and iteration

• Build and continuously improve AI-powered tools, agents, and automations, integrating with our Python and Java-based microservices, our web and mobile apps, and third-party systems

• Drive the continued integration of agentic software development across engineering, expanding adoption, elevating our technical capabilities, and acting as a force for innovation

• Evaluate emerging AI tools, models, and patterns; run fast experiments and convert the winners into durable internal capabilities

• Define and track the metrics that prove impact (time saved, throughput, quality, cost) and communicate results to stakeholders and leadership

• Work with fellow engineering team members to collaboratively create and refine technical designs and solutions

• Collaborate with key partners including data science, product management, design, security, and operational and behavioral health teams

• Follow and promote best practices during all phases of software development, adhering to the highest quality and security standards, including the responsible handling of sensitive data in AI workflows

Qualifications:

• BS in CS or related technical field

• 8+ years of experience developing enterprise or consumer web applications, ideally using Python or Java/Spring

• Hands-on experience building with LLMs in production: agentic tools and frameworks, prompt and context engineering, evals, and development workflows using Claude and Codex

• Demonstrated ability to work directly with non-engineering stakeholders: eliciting requirements, translating ambiguous business problems into shipped software, and driving adoption of what you build

• Strong judgment about where AI genuinely helps versus where it adds risk or noise, especially in a healthcare context

• Must be highly proactive and a self-starter. This role has unusual autonomy: you will often be the one deciding what to build next, and everyone at Lyra contributes to design, product, front-end, back-end, and quality