Staff Software Engineer

This role requires a blend of technical expertise, leadership skills, and the ability to foster a collaborative and innovative environment. We are looking for a Project Lead familiar with cloud-native and AI-native development practices. Our software is built around AI at its core—LLMs, agents, and retrieval systems—and runs on IaaS (Google Cloud/AWS/etc.), so familiarity with these environments and their managed AI services is a plus. Full ownership of your code will be encouraged, including deployment, testing, evaluation, and validation of both traditional and AI components. You will lead a team of software and AI engineers, coaching and mentoring them. Familiarity with CI/CD, test-driven development, and evaluation-driven development (eval harnesses for AI features) will be a benefit. Responsibility Area: Software Development Develop intuitive AI-native software that meets and exceeds the needs of the company Development of technical specifications and planning, including model selection, prompt/agent design, and data/retrieval architecture Analyze and automate tests for software components prior to delivery, and build evaluation harnesses (accuracy, regression, and hallucination checks) for AI features Troubleshoot coding and model-behavior problems quickly and efficiently to ensure a productive workplace Follow secure software coding practices, including AI-specific safeguards (prompt-injection defense, data privacy, PII handling, and responsible-AI guardrails) Professionally maintain all software and create updates regularly to address customer and company concerns, including monitoring model performance and drift in production IaaS procedures and practices, including managed AI/ML services (e.g., Bedrock/SageMaker, Azure OpenAI, Vertex AI) Experience with Kubernetes and containerization is welcome; experience serving models or deploying inference/GPU workloads is a plus Responsibility Area: Communication Communicate effectively and professionally in all forms of communication with internal and external customers Liaise with team members, management, and clients Be transparent about challenges, failures, and successes, including the limitations and non-deterministic nature of AI systems Deliver presentations and write progress reports for stakeholders, translating AI capabilities and trade-offs for both technical and non-technical audiences Actively seek ways to improve business software processes and interactions, including where AI and automation can add value Responsibility Area: Leadership Manage individual contributors' daily tasks Mentor software and AI engineers to ensure high product quality across both deterministic code and AI/model behavior Perform detailed code reviews, including reviews of prompts, agent logic, and evaluation results Evaluate performance, provide feedback and constructive criticism to team members Set and track quarterly goals for all team members Assist with training and recruitment activities Provide status updates, weekly reports, and issue details to senior leadership as needed Participate in Root Cause Analysis for customer-reported issues, including failures rooted in model behavior, hallucinations, or data/retrieval quality Aid and support the coaching and training of other team members to ensure all employees are confident in the use of software applications and AI tooling Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams including product management, domain specialists, and engineering to define requirements and develop scalable AI-driven solutions Stay current with the latest advancements in AI and related technologies (new models, frameworks, and techniques), and proactively identify opportunities to apply them to our products and services

8-12 years of practical Java experience 2 years of experience with prompt engineering and prompt/agent scripting 2 years of hands-on experience integrating third-party AI/ML services and platform APIs (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Salesforce and oth