AI Special Projects Engineer

Lightning Labs is looking for an AI Special Projects Engineer who is passionate about bringing bitcoin to the next billion people by applying AI to accelerate everything we build. This is a cross-functional, cross-product role: you will drop into the highest-priority projects across the company, from adding agent tooling to an existing product, to helping the business development team automate core workflows, to building demos that showcase what developers can do with our protocols and services. The ideal candidate is an AI-native builder who ships production-quality software using tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex, and who thrives on context switching, operating autonomously, and delivering against broad goals.

An engineering background is strongly preferred but we are open to non-traditional ones. What matters is a demonstrated ability to build and ship real software, a strong intuition for product, and the versatility to contribute wherever the team needs you most.

• Cross-Product Building

  • Ship features, tooling, and integrations across Lightning Labs products including L402, Taproot Assets, Terminal Web, LND, and completely new products. Picking up the most impactful work regardless of product area.

  • Build and maintain agent-facing tooling that makes Lightning Labs protocols and APIs accessible to AI agents and agentic workflows.

• Demos and Developer Experience

  • Create compelling, working demos that showcase end-to-end flows for developers and builders, from Lightning payments to L402-powered agentic commerce to node management.

  • Identify high-signal use cases and translate them into tangible prototypes that communicate the value of building on Lightning.

• Internal Automation and Tooling

  • Partner with business development, marketing, product, and engineering teams to identify workflows that can be automated or augmented with AI.

  • Build internal tools and scripts that reduce manual overhead and free the team to focus on higher-leverage work.

• Autonomous Execution

  • Operate with minimal direction. Understand the company's strategic priorities, identify where you can have the most impact, and execute.

  • Context switch across projects and teams while maintaining high quality and consistent delivery.

• Communication and Collaboration

  • Work closely with engineers, product, and business development to understand project context quickly and contribute meaningfully from day one on any given initiative.

  • Communicate progress, tradeoffs, and blockers clearly and proactively, especially when operating across multiple workstreams simultaneously.

  • Share learnings and patterns from AI-assisted development with the broader team to raise the bar on how the company builds software.

Location: San Francisco Bay Area ideal. Remote considered for strong candidates, with proximity to US time zones

• Passion for bitcoin, Lightning, and the mission of bringing financial freedom to the world.

• Demonstrated ability to build and ship production-quality software using AI-native development tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, or similar.

• Strong portfolio of projects, demos, or products you have built, whether in a professional setting, open source, or independently.

• Comfortable working across the full stack and picking up unfamiliar codebases, languages, or frameworks quickly.

• Proactive and self-directed, with a bias toward action and a track record of delivering in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.

• Excellent communicator who can translate between technical and non-technical contexts.

• Familiarity with agentic AI patterns: tool use, MCP, multi-step workflows, and integrating LLMs into production systems.

• Understanding of Bitcoin, the Lightning Network, and related protocols such as L402 or Taproot Assets.

• Experience building developer-facing demos, sample applications, or technical content.

• Prior contributions to open source projects.

• Experience working at a small, high-growth startup where wearing many hats was the norm.