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Core Engineering Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Rox

Core Engineering

San Francisco, CA · On-site

About the Core Engineering Team Core Engineering builds the systems that make autonomous revenue agents reliable at enterprise scale. This team sits at the center of Rox's long-term technical ...

Pixar

Director, Core Engineering

Emeryville, CA

$243K - $314K/yr

The Software R&D Core team designs and develops foundational libraries and technologies used by software engineers across Pixar and the broader industry to build high performance graphics ...

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Core Engineering information

See California salary details

$32.1K

$62.2K

$94.2K

How much do core engineering jobs pay per year?

As of Aug 12, 2026, the average yearly pay for core engineering in California is $62,152.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $46,400.00 and $71,100.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive in core engineering, and why are they important?

To thrive in Core Engineering, you need a solid background in mathematics, physics, and engineering fundamentals, usually backed by a relevant degree such as Mechanical, Civil, or Electrical Engineering. Familiarity with technical tools like CAD software, simulation platforms, and industry-specific certifications (e.g., PE or FE exams) is often required. Strong problem-solving abilities, teamwork, and effective communication skills help engineers collaborate and innovate effectively. These skills ensure that complex engineering projects are executed safely, efficiently, and to the highest standards.

What is the difference between Core Engineering vs Mechanical Engineering?

AspectCore EngineeringMechanical Engineering
Required CredentialsBachelor's in Engineering, certifications in specific fieldsBachelor's in Mechanical Engineering, possibly Professional Engineer (PE) license
Work EnvironmentIndustrial plants, manufacturing, infrastructure projectsDesign offices, manufacturing plants, R&D labs
Industry UsageHeavy industry, infrastructure, energy sectorsAutomotive, aerospace, robotics, manufacturing

Core Engineering focuses on specialized technical roles within industries like manufacturing and infrastructure, often requiring specific certifications. Mechanical Engineering is broader, covering design, analysis, and manufacturing of mechanical systems across various sectors. While both share foundational engineering principles, Core Engineering tends to be more specialized and application-focused.

What does a core engineer do?

A core engineer designs, develops, and maintains the fundamental systems and components of a product or infrastructure, often focusing on low-level programming, hardware integration, or system architecture. They typically work with programming languages like C or C++, and require strong problem-solving skills and knowledge of system operations. Core engineers are essential in ensuring the stability, performance, and scalability of technical systems.

What are the typical projects and responsibilities for someone in a core engineering role?

Professionals in Core Engineering are usually responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining the foundational systems or platforms that other teams and products rely on. This often includes building scalable infrastructure, optimizing performance, and ensuring the reliability of core services. Daily tasks may involve collaborating with product teams, conducting code reviews, and troubleshooting complex technical issues. Working in Core Engineering offers opportunities to solve challenging problems and have a broad impact across the organization, as your work enables other engineers to build efficiently.

What is core engineering?

Core Engineering refers to the central disciplines of engineering, such as mechanical, electrical, civil, and chemical engineering, which form the foundation for specialized engineering roles. Professionals in core engineering are responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining essential infrastructure, systems, and technologies. These roles often involve research, problem-solving, and the application of scientific principles to create efficient and reliable products or solutions. Core engineers are employed across a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, energy, automotive, and construction.
What are popular job titles related to Core Engineering jobs in California? For Core Engineering jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Core Engineering jobs in California look for? The top searched job categories for Core Engineering jobs in California are:
Core Engineering jobs near you
Infographic showing various Core Engineering job openings in California as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% As Needed, 80% Full Time, 15% Part Time, 2% Temporary, and 2% Contract. Highlights an 93% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 4% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $62,152 per year, or $29.9 per hour.

Core Engineering

Rox

San Francisco, CA • On-site

Full-time

Re-posted 28 days ago

Job description

About Rox
Rox is building the AI-native revenue operating system.
Most enterprise software was built for humans operating dashboards. Rox is built for agents operating systems.
Instead of static workflows, Rox runs continuous decision loops powered by real-time context from across the enterprise.
Agents analyze signals, reason about them, and take action - automatically.
To make that possible, we are building infrastructure that combines elements of:
  • distributed systems
  • real-time decisioning
  • agent execution frameworks
  • semantic retrieval systems
  • low-latency streaming infrastructure
  • knowledge graph architectures

We're backed by Sequoia, GV, and General Catalyst and have grown rapidly from 15 to 75 people while shipping our platform years faster than the market expected. We already support Global 2000 customers across industries including banking, hardware, construction, and sovereign AI.
We are building for what enterprise AI systems will require two years from now - not just what exists today.
About the Core Engineering Team
Core Engineering builds the systems that make autonomous revenue agents reliable at enterprise scale.
This team sits at the center of Rox's long-term technical strategy and owns foundational infrastructure across:
  • agent reliability and orchestration
  • distributed execution systems
  • graph-based retrieval infrastructure
  • streaming and real-time context systems
  • observability for autonomous workflows
  • low-latency data and inference pipelines

The problems here look less like traditional SaaS application engineering and more like:
  • real-time OLAP systems
  • streaming compute platforms
  • distributed databases
  • semantic retrieval systems
  • deterministic execution infrastructure
  • high-scale platform engineering

At Rox, agents continuously:
  • retrieve context
  • reason across changing state
  • trigger actions
  • update workflows
  • coordinate across systems

Core Engineering builds the infrastructure that makes those loops fast, reliable, observable, and deterministic.
The Role
We are hiring a Core Engineer to help design and operate the foundational infrastructure behind Rox's autonomous agent platform.
This role is ideal for engineers who have deep systems intuition and want to work on infrastructure problems at the frontier of AI reliability.
You might be a fit if you've spent time building:
  • distributed infrastructure
  • streaming systems
  • semantic search infrastructure
  • graph-based retrieval systems
  • execution runtimes
  • reliability infrastructure
  • low-latency backend platforms

Or if you've historically been "the person" inside your company for difficult infrastructure problems.
We care deeply about engineering craftsmanship, systems thinking, and people who can reason about long-term architecture under real-world scale constraints.
What You'll Do
  • Build infrastructure for reliable autonomous agent execution
  • Design systems for deterministic, auditable agent behavior at enterprise SLAs
  • Develop low-latency retrieval and context systems powering AI workflows
  • Build and scale graph-based infrastructure and semantic retrieval systems
  • Improve observability, debugging, and reliability across distributed agent systems
  • Work on real-time data ingestion and streaming architectures
  • Collaborate closely with platform, AI, and product engineering teams
  • Help shape the long-term architecture behind Rox's agent runtime
Problems You'll Work On
  • Reliability for long-horizon AI workflows
  • Agent orchestration across distributed systems
  • Deterministic execution for autonomous systems
  • Streaming context ingestion and retrieval
  • Knowledge graph infrastructure
  • Real-time state synchronization
  • Low-latency execution pipelines
  • Enterprise-grade observability for agent systems
Must-Have Qualifications
  • Strong background in distributed systems or platform engineering
  • Experience building and operating high-scale backend infrastructure
  • Strong systems fundamentals across networking, concurrency, storage, and reliability
  • Experience with streaming systems, distributed databases, or real-time infrastructure
  • Ability to independently design and ship complex technical systems
  • Strong product and engineering judgment
Particularly Relevant Backgrounds
We'd especially love to speak with engineers who have experience in areas like:
  • Apache Flink
  • distributed query engines
  • real-time OLAP systems
  • graph retrieval systems
  • semantic search infrastructure
  • streaming compute systems
  • large-scale platform engineering
  • AI infrastructure and orchestration systems

Open source contributors, infrastructure specialists, and engineers who have historically operated as technical force multipliers inside their organizations tend to thrive here.
What Success Looks Like
In your first few weeks
You understand Rox's architecture, agent runtime, and infrastructure stack deeply enough to contribute to production systems.
In your first few months
You are independently designing and improving core systems tied to agent reliability, execution, and retrieval performance.
Over time
You help define the technical foundation that enables autonomous enterprise workflows to operate reliably at massive scale.
Why This Role Exists
Enterprise AI systems are moving toward autonomous execution.
The hard problem is not generating outputs - it's building reliable systems that can reason, retrieve context, coordinate actions, and operate deterministically under real-world enterprise constraints.
We believe this requires a new category of infrastructure engineering.
That is the problem space this team exists to solve.
Location
This role is based onsite in San Francisco.
We strongly believe that the speed and complexity of the problems we are solving benefit from in-person collaboration. We actively relocate exceptional engineers from around the world and currently have team members who have moved from Europe, Canada, Asia, and Australia to join Rox.
If you want to work on deep infrastructure problems at the frontier of autonomous systems, we'd love to talk.

Apply