We are here to build Cloudinary’s next big thing.
We are seeking an R&D Lead to lead the development of Cloudinary for Agentic Commerce, a brand new Cloudinary product. The product focuses on owning the visual and semantic layer that AI agents rely on to understand, rank, and present products. We are a small, fast-moving, and highly independent team with full end-to-end ownership. The opportunity ahead is large: the “front door” of commerce is shifting from websites to AI agents, and merchants must adapt to be discovered, selected, and converted inside agent-driven experiences.
Responsibilities
Lead and be accountable for all development efforts, with a co-founder / CTO-level mindset
Co-lead the pod alongside the GM as a true counterpart
Build a deep understanding of how AI agents consume product data, media, and signals, and how merchants win selection and conversion in this new paradigm
Starting as a solo developer, you will be responsible for designing and shipping an AI-native product, growing a team when needed
Leverage Cloudinary’s platform to get to market quickly, building only what meaningfully advances learning and traction
Continuously adjust technical direction as agent behaviors, protocols, and market assumptions evolve
Requirements
10+ years of professional experience as a software developer
5+ years of experience leading development teams or major technical initiatives
Experience designing and building AI systems
Hands-on experience using AI-assisted development tools as a core part of daily coding and system design
Proven ability to rapidly prototype, iterate, and refactor production-quality systems using modern AI tooling
Experience designing distributed, cloud-based systems
A background in image or video technologies is an advantage
A background in the marketing and e-commerce space is an advantage
Demonstrated ability to operate in high ambiguity and build things that did not exist before - Startup or founder experience is a strong advantage
Who You Are
You think in user value and systems first principles, not just features
A hands-on technical leader who uses AI as a default tool to accelerate thinking, building, and iteration
Motivated to build new products and systems in ways that were not possible or practical just a year ago
You are hands-on, humble, and deeply user-centric
You value ownership, not just responsibility
Cloudinary is a leading cloud-based image and video platform. This is a rare opportunity to help define a new product category inside a strong, established company, and to build it from day one.
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