Senior Software Engineer, Kotlin

About Us

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 38K+ GitHub stars and 9.7K+ 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 Kotlin development, we'd love to hear from you.
What You'll Be Working On

• Expanding Cline to JetBrains IDEs - Build and optimize new capabilities for our JetBrains extensions, leveraging the IntelliJ Platform SDK to create a seamless developer experience.
• Expanding AI-Powered Features - Design and implement LLM-driven coding assistance for JetBrains platforms, 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 Integration - Work on services that power real-time AI interactions for JetBrains IDEs, integrating with OpenRouter and other LLM providers.
• Interface Development - Build intuitive Kotlin-based UI components for our JetBrains extensions, 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 in JetBrains environments.
• Performance & Scalability - Optimize response times, caching, and data structures to handle billions of tokens per day efficiently.

Why Join Us?

• Work at the frontier of AI and developer tooling.
• Direct impact on a rapidly growing open-source project.
• Ownership & autonomy - You'll be involved in architectural decisions, feature development, and AI integration strategies.
• Tight-knit team in SF - Collaborate with top engineers, AI researchers, and open-source contributors.

Ready to build the next-gen AI coding assistant? Apply now!

Requirements

• Professional Background: At least 5+ years of software engineering experience, ideally with exposure to both large-scale tech organizations and early-stage startup environments.
• Strong Kotlin Expertise: Proficiency in Kotlin and JVM development with deep understanding of the JetBrains ecosystem and IntelliJ Platform SDK.
• JetBrains Extension Experience: Expertise with IntelliJ Platform plugin development, including extension points, services, PSI trees, and UI components in JetBrains IDEs.
• Infrastructure and Cloud services: 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.
• LLM Exposure: Hands-on experience with LLMs, RAG, prompt engineering, and context management - including knowledge of commonly used frameworks is a plus.
• System Design & Scalability: Ability to build robust, high-performance solutions that can handle high traffic volumes and billions of interactions per day.
• Problem Solver & Team Player: Eagerness to tackle complex challenges in a collaborative environment with a passion for AI-driven developer tools.

Applicants need not have all of these skills to qualify, but an ideal candidate should have some familiarity and experience, combined with an ability to quickly gain proficiency in new skills.

Benefits

• Competitive Salary + Equity: $200,000 - $300,000 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.