Staff Software Engineer - AI Platform

About the Role Lead Software Engineer (Staff Engineer) responsible for the backend and orchestration layer powering AI agents, conversations, workspaces, and knowledge base across CoCounsel for Audit. Shape the AI platform and patterns: define patterns for building MCP servers, designing agents, novel uses of LLMs, experimentation, and scalable infrastructure. Shape the platform integration strategy across new and existing Thomson Reuters audit systems to provide world‑class content and solutions for our customers. Work at real production scale: build and evolve systems that operate over millions of documents, highly structured tax data, ever‑changing laws, and thousands of concurrent AI interactions from accountants doing time‑sensitive work. Lead a tight group of senior engineers and researchers, with direct access to product leadership and customers. Own technical direction, mentor senior engineers, and focus on AI system architecture. What You’ll Do Lead multi‑quarter initiatives that cut across AI, product, and infrastructure. Mentor senior and mid‑level engineers, raising the bar on system design, code quality, and AI integration practices. Be a go‑to expert in new model capabilities, collaborating closely with AI/ML engineers, researchers, designers, and PMs. Help shape the team’s roadmap, technical strategy, and engineering culture. Design and Own AI‑First Backend Systems Provide technical POV on architecting and implementing backend services (Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, AWS, Vercel). Build and evolve AI orchestration: routing, tool calling, MCP servers, multi‑step workflows, safety, guardrails, and robust error handling around third‑party LLMs. Scale, Reliability, and Performance Design for high‑throughput, low‑latency AI workloads: caching, queuing, rate‑limiting, model failover, and cost/performance trade‑offs. Work with large‑scale data: millions of documents, retrieval and search, vector stores, and indexing strategies tailored to tax and accounting use cases. Establish and refine SLOs, observability, and incident response for AI systems that must be correct, auditable, and trustworthy in professional workflows. About You Fit for the position if your background includes: Required Experience & Skills Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience. 5–7+ years of experience in full‑stack development, building scalable cloud‑based applications, web services, APIs, and AI‑driven products. Deep Python expertise and experience with production systems using frameworks like FastAPI, relational databases (PostgreSQL or equivalent), and a major cloud provider (AWS preferred). Strong background in distributed systems: data modeling, API contracts, observability, resilience patterns, and performance tuning under load. Proven track record leading large, complex projects end‑to‑end: architecture, execution, rollout, and long‑term operation. Excellent communication skills and the ability to partner with product, design, and ML teams in a fast‑moving environment. Demonstrated interest in AI systems and new engineering paradigms: LLMs, agents, retrieval, or similar. Preferred Skills & Experience Hands‑on experience integrating LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic) into production applications, including prompt/response management, cost controls, and safety considerations. Experience with AI‑adjacent infrastructure: vector databases, embeddings, semantic search, or custom retrieval pipelines. Opinions and experience around automated testing, reliability, and release practices for systems with non‑deterministic model behavior. Prior experience in domains where correctness, auditability, and compliance matter (fintech, tax, audit, legal, or similar). Benefits Hybrid Work Model: flexible hybrid working environment (2–3 days a week in the office). Flexibility & Work‑Life Balance: support policies for personal and professional responsibilities, up to 8 weeks work from anywhere per year. Career Development and Growth: continuous learning and skill development programs. Industry Competitive Benefits: comprehensive plans including flexible vacation, company mental health days, retirement savings, tuition reimbursement, and wellness resources. Culture: inclusive environment focused on customer obsession, rapid learning, and teamwork. Social Impact: paid volunteer days and ESG initiatives. Salary Base compensation range: $146,800 – $272,600 USD (NYC, SF, LA, Irvine). Other US locations: $127,400 – $236,600 USD. Ontario, Canada: $140,000 – $175,000 CAD. Eligible for annual bonus. Equal Employment Opportunity Thomson Reuters is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer providing a drug‑free workplace. The company makes reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities, including veterans with disabilities, and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law. #J-18808-Ljbffr Thomson Reuters