Staff Software Development Engineer - Applied AI

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Staff Software Development Engineer - Applied AI based in Canada.

We are seeking a highly experienced software engineer to lead the development of AI-powered services that solve complex business challenges at scale.

This role focuses on designing, building, and operating intelligent systems that combine agentic AI, modern software engineering practices, and secure cloud architectures.

You will own AI solutions end to end, from architecture decisions and data grounding strategies to production deployment and continuous improvement.

Working in a remote-first engineering environment, you will collaborate with talented teams to advance AI-driven products and internal development practices.

The position offers the opportunity to shape innovative solutions in a highly regulated industry where accuracy, reliability, and security are critical.

You will play a key role in improving how software is created, leveraging AI technologies while maintaining strong engineering standards and customer impact.

The role is responsible for owning AI-powered services throughout their full lifecycle, ensuring they are reliable, scalable, secure, and aligned with business needs. You will contribute to both customer-facing AI products and internal AI-driven engineering workflows while helping establish best practices for modern AI development.

• Own the architecture, implementation, deployment, and ongoing operation of AI-powered services from concept through production.
• Design data representation layers that provide accurate, efficient business context for large language models and AI agents.
• Build evaluation pipelines to measure AI quality, detect regressions, and monitor production performance.
• Implement security controls and guardrails to prevent prompt injection, unauthorized access, data exposure, and misuse of AI capabilities.
• Manage infrastructure requirements, including infrastructure as code, CI/CD pipelines, observability, and cost optimization.
• Integrate AI services with existing products and APIs through secure interfaces and modern integration patterns.
• Lead and review agent-based software development workflows, improving engineering productivity while maintaining quality and compliance standards.
• Support the evolution of AI development practices, tooling, and automation across engineering teams.
• Make independent architectural decisions and provide technical guidance on complex AI and software engineering challenges.

The ideal candidate brings extensive experience building production-grade software systems and a strong background in applied AI, cloud technologies, and modern engineering practices. You should be comfortable owning complex technical initiatives, making architectural decisions, and communicating AI concepts clearly to technical and business stakeholders.

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience with a strong track record of designing and delivering production systems.
• 1.5+ years of experience building and operating LLM-based or agentic AI systems in SaaS or enterprise environments.
• Proven experience owning services end to end, including application development, infrastructure as code, CI/CD, monitoring, and production support.
• Strong knowledge of agentic AI technologies, including stateful agent orchestration frameworks, MCP integrations, and AI evaluation or observability platforms.
• Experience designing retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems using vector-enabled databases or similar technologies.
• Ability to evaluate model selection strategies, balancing performance, cost, and business requirements.
• Strong Python development skills with solid software engineering fundamentals; experience with .NET/C# is a plus.
• Experience applying software architecture principles such as Domain-Driven Design and Clean Architecture.
• Familiarity with cloud-native architectures, preferably within Azure environments, including serverless functions, Kubernetes, and event-driven systems.
• Knowledge of AI security practices, including access controls, data protection, prompt injection mitigation, and responsible AI implementation.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical trade-offs and business impacts.
• A proactive mindset with the ability to build new systems, challenge assumptions, and continuously improve engineering practices.

• Competitive annual salary range of CAD $180,000 - $200,000.
• Fully remote work environment with flexibility to work from anywhere in Canada.
• Opportunity to make a direct impact within a growing technology organization.
• Access to professional development opportunities and continuous learning initiatives.
• Exposure to advanced AI, machine learning, cloud, and software engineering technologies.
• Collaborative culture focused on innovation, teamwork, and meaningful problem-solving.
• Supportive environment that values curiosity,…