Software Engineer – AI Platform

About the Role

Lead Software Engineer (Staff Engineer) responsible for the backend and orchestration layer powering AI agents, conversations, work spaces, 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Fit for the position if your background includes:

• 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.

• 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).

• 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.

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.

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.