About the position
Cline (GitHub) is redefining how developers interact with AI. Our autonomous coding agent lives inside your IDE, providing seamless AI-assisted development while keeping you in control. With 1 million+ installs on our VS Code extension and 35 billion+ tokens processed daily on OpenRouter, Cline is the #1 most used application on the platform. Our open-source community is thriving, with 39K+ GitHub stars and 15K+ members on Discord—and we're just getting started. We believe AI should empower developers, not replace them. Our mission is to build cutting-edge AI-powered tools that enhance software development, streamline workflows, and boost productivity. If you’re passionate about LLMs, AI-driven developer tools, and full-stack software engineering, we’d love to hear from you. If you really want to get our attention start having your PR's merged in the open-source repository. Contributors will always be looked at first. Feel free to mention in your PR's that you applied.
Responsibilities
- Enhancing the Cline VS Code Extension – Build and optimize new capabilities for our extension, leveraging the VS Code API to create a more seamless developer experience.
- Expanding AI-Powered Features – Design and implement LLM-driven coding assistance, including code generation, refactoring, in-editor debugging, and AI-powered command execution.
- Optimizing Interaction Between Cline and LLMs – Improve prompt engineering strategies, token efficiency, memory management, and contextual awareness.
- Backend Development – Work on Node.js services that power real-time AI interactions, integrating with OpenRouter and other LLM providers.
- Frontend Development – Build intuitive React-based webviews for our VS Code extension, ensuring a fluid user experience.
- Agentic Capabilities & Automation – Extend Cline’s ability to autonomously edit files, execute commands, and browse the web with safe, permission-based workflows.
- Performance & Scalability – Optimize response times, caching, and data structures to handle billions of tokens per day efficiently.
Requirements
- At least 3+ years of core software engineering experience, ideally with exposure to both large-scale tech organizations and early-stage startup environments.
- Bachelor in computer science, Engineering, or a related field.
- Proficiency in TypeScript, React, Node.js, and understanding of modern web application design.
- Knowledge of strongly typed languages like Golang, Java, or Rust and API patterns including gRPC and REST, and architectural patterns including Domain Driven Design.
- Experience with public cloud services like AWS, GCP, or Azure, container orchestration such as Kubernetes, AWS ECS, or Google GKE, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform, and CI/CD practices.
- Familiarity with extension activation events, commands, and webview management in VS Code.
- Hands-on experience with LLMs, RAG, prompt engineering, and context management—including knowledge of commonly used frameworks is a plus.
- Ability to build robust, high-performance solutions that can handle high traffic volumes and billions of interactions per day.
- Eagerness to tackle complex challenges in a collaborative environment with a passion for AI-driven developer tools.
Benefits
- Competitive Salary + Equity: $150,000 – $250,000 DOE, plus equity in a fast-growing AI startup.
- Healthcare Coverage: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans.
- In-Person Collaboration: Enjoy our San Francisco office culture with direct access to founders and a stellar engineering team.
- Impact & Ownership: Shape product direction and influence the open-source community at scale.
