Staff Software Engineer

About the Role

We’re seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead technical direction and architectural decisions for a secure, AI-enabled data platform. This role blends hands-on software engineering with MLOps and data infrastructure expertise.

You’ll be responsible for designing, building, and supporting mission-critical services across the full data stack. The ideal candidate brings deep experience delivering secure, large-scale production systems and thrives in high-ownership, ambiguous environments. Familiarity with national security or regulated environments is a strong plus, as understanding complex stakeholder requirements will directly inform the product roadmap.

This is an AI-native engineering team. Engineers are expected to leverage LLMs and AI tooling as a core part of their daily workflow—from system design and coding to debugging and deployment.

What You’ll Do

• Own architectural decisions and technical strategy for a secure, production-grade platform

• Design and scale systems that handle sensitive, large-scale data

• Contribute hands-on across backend services, infrastructure, and ML-enabled components

• Shape engineering culture and best practices in a high-security, high-impact environment

• Integrate AI tools and LLM-driven workflows into development and operational processes

• Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to translate complex requirements into scalable solutions

What We’re Looking For

Technical Leadership

• 12–20+ years of engineering experience, including time operating at Staff level or above

• Proven track record owning architecture for large-scale, mission-critical production systems

• Systems thinker with strong judgment around trade-offs and long-term scalability

• Clear communicator who can engage both technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Comfortable operating with ambiguity and full ownership

Domain & Technical Expertise

• Experience handling and securing large-scale production data

• Strong proficiency with AWS (e.g., S3, Lambda, RDS)

• Experience with ML development in Python and/or JavaScript

• Interest in solving complex data-sharing challenges with modern AI approaches

• Familiarity with regulated or high-security environments is a plus

AI-Augmented Engineering

• Daily use of AI coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot)

• Experience leveraging LLMs across architecture design, debugging, and development workflows

• Strong understanding of AI limitations and when to verify outputs

• Familiarity with LLM integration frameworks (e.g., MCP or similar)