Staff Software Engineer, AI Platform

JLL empowers you to shape a brighter way. Our people at JLL are shaping the future of real estate for a better world by combining world class services, advisory and technology for our clients. We are committed to hiring the best, most talented people and empowering them to thrive, grow meaningful careers and to find a place where they belong. Whether you’ve got deep experience in commercial real estate, skilled trades or technology, or you’re looking to apply your relevant experience to a new industry, join our team as we help shape a brighter way forward. About the teamWe are building JLL's internal AI platform: the layer every team in the firm uses to ship AI agents and AI-backed products. That means a gateway that puts a large and growing set of models from multiple providers behind one API, a shared chat surface that makes any agent reachable by employees across the firm, the developer tooling that takes an agent from an idea to something running in production, etc.You would join early enough to shape what this platform becomes. The foundations are live and already carrying production traffic, and the decisions still ahead of us are the ones that determine how every team at JLL builds with AI. Few engineers get the chance to set that direction at a firm this size, and fewer still get to see it in use across the business within weeks of building it.About the roleThis is a Staff level individual contributor role on a young platform. You will set technical direction rather than receive it: choosing the abstractions other teams will build against, deciding what belongs in the platform and what does not, and being accountable for whether those choices still look right a year from now.The work is genuinely both halves of the title. It is serious distributed systems engineering, with a gateway on the critical path of everything the firm builds, and it is AI engineering, where the hard problems are model routing, evaluation, guardrails, token cost and latency. We need someone who has shipped LLM backed systems in production and who would also be a strong platform engineer on any team.What you'll doBuild the platformOwn significant parts of the platform end to end, from the shape of the API through to how it behaves under loadBe accountable for reliability and performance in production, on a gateway that sits on the critical path of everything the firm builds with AIDesign the model gateway: provider abstraction, routing, failover, and making a provider switch a configuration change rather than a migrationMake the agent surface work regardless of which framework a team chose or where their agent runsSolve the AI engineering problemsBuild the evaluation and benchmarking capability the platform needs, largely from scratchDesign the guardrails that let an agent reach production safely, and help turn draft internal standards into something enforceable in codeOwn inference cost and latency as first class engineering concerns, including spend attribution and the routing decisions behind itKeep pace with a model landscape that changes weekly, and make onboarding a new model routine rather than a projectSet the standardMake the compliant path the fast path, so that building on the platform is how a team clears architecture, security and responsible-AI reviewBe the engineer other teams bring their hardest integration problems toRaise the bar on observability before scale forces the issueMentor across a distributed team, and leave behind designs and documentation that outlast your involvementWhat we're looking forRequired8+ years building and operating production systemsDirect experience shipping agentic systems to production, not prototypes: agentic patterns, retrieval, tool calling, inference cost and latency, etc.Hands-on experience with more than one model provider, including dealing with the differences between them in practiceExperience with evaluation, observability or guardrail tooling for agentic systemsStrong platform engineering track record, on systems where other engineering teams were your usersHands-on depth in at least one major public cloud, including running and debugging production workloadsExperience designing APIs and abstractions that others build against and that you then have to keep stableDemonstrable production ownership: on-call, incident response, root cause analysisA track record of pushing work through a large organisation: navigating process, winning the argument, and getting decisions unblocked rather than waiting on themExcellent English communication, written and spokenPreferredBuilt or operated an internal developer platform or shared multi-tenant serviceKubernetes and container-based deliveryInfrastructure as codeEnterprise security, data privacy or responsible-AI review processesHow we work: A small team that moves quickly inside a very large organisation, where the fastest route is rarely the obvious oneAn early stage platform where the roadmap is still being writtenDeciding without complete information, and revisiting the decision when it turns out to be wrongA distributed team with limited timezone overlapProduction users from day one, on a platform still being built underneath themThis position does not provide visa sponsorship. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship.Estimated compensation for this position:160,000.00 – 260,000.00 USD per yearThis range is an estimate and actual compensation may differ. Final compensation packages are determined by various considerations including but not limited to candidate qualifications, location, market conditions, and internal considerations.Location:Remote –Chicago, ILIf this job description resonates with you, we encourage you to apply, even if you don’t meet all the requirements. We’re interested in getting to know you and what you bring to the table!Personalized benefits that support personal well-being and growth:JLL recognizes the impact that the workplace can have on your wellness, so we offer a supportive culture and comprehensive benefits package that prioritizes mental, physical and emotional health. Some of these benefits may include:401(k) plan with matching company contributionsComprehensive Medical, Dental & Vision CarePaid parental leave at 100% of salary Paid Time Off and Company HolidaysEarly access to earned wages through Daily PayAt JLL, we harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to efficiently accelerate meaningful connections between candidates and opportunities. Using AI capabilities, we analyze your application for relevant skills, experiences, and qualifications to generate valuable insights about how your unique profile aligns with the specific requirements of the role you're pursuing.JLL Privacy NoticeJones Lang LaSalle (JLL), together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading global provider of real estate and investment management services. We take our responsibility to protect the personal information provided to us seriously. Generally the personal information we collect from you are for the purposes of processing in connection with JLL’s recruitment process. We endeavour to keep your personal information secure with appropriate level of security and keep for as long as we need it for legitimate business or legal reasons. We will then delete it safely and securely.For more information about how JLL processes your personal data, please view our Candidate Privacy Statement.For additional details please see our career site pages for each country.For candidates in the United States, please see a full copy of our Equal Employment Opportunity policy here.Jones Lang LaSalle (“JLL”) is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process – including the online application and/or overall selection process – you may email us at View email address on click.appcast.io. This email is only to request an accommodation. Please direct any other general recruiting inquiries to our Contact Us page > I want to work for JLL.Pursuant to the Arizona Civil Rights Act, criminal convictions are not an absolute bar to employment.Pursuant to Illinois Law, applicants are not obligated to disclose sealed or expunged records of conviction or arrest.Pursuant to Columbia, SC ordinance, this position is subject to a background check for any convictions directly related to its duties and responsibilities. Only job-related convictions will be considered and will not automatically disqualify the candidate.California Residents onlyIf you are a California resident as defined in the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) please view our Supplemental Privacy Statement which describes your rights and disclosures about your personal information. If you are viewing this on a mobile device you may want to view the CCPA version on a larger device.Pursuant to the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, JLL will consider for employment all qualified Applicants, including those with Criminal Histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance.Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.Accepting applications on an ongoing basis until candidate identified.SummaryLocation: Chicago, ILType: Full time