AI Engineer; Full Stack - R&D IT

About The Opportunity

Driscoll’s is building an AI‑assisted R&D capability to modernize how data, software and decision support come together across breeding, genomics, lab, phenotyping, sensory and agronomy workflows. This role sits within an emerging R&D IT function embedded in Global R&D and works closely with scientists, breeders, product leads and Global IS to turn ambiguous scientific needs into production‑ready tools.

Location:
US – Watsonville, California

Job Family:
IT

Time Type:
Full time

Job Requisition :
R0007340

Experience Years:
5‑10 Years of Experience

Employee Type:
Regular

Remote Type:
Onsite

• Build end‑to‑end solutions within the Driscoll’s R&D IT ecosystem, including helping evolve the underlying infrastructure and delivery patterns.
• Design, build, and ship full‑stack applications that support R&D workflows and decision‑making across breeding, lab, genomics, phenotyping, sensory and agronomy use cases.
• Develop scalable services, APIs, workflow automations, and modern user interfaces using technologies such as React, Type Script, Node.js/Express, Python, FastAPI, and relational databases.
• Integrate internal tools, vendor platforms and off‑the‑shelf systems through APIs, data flows, authentication/authorization and workflow automation.
• Build AI‑enabled applications such as grounded assistants, retrieval‑augmented experiences, workflow copilots, evaluation dashboards, and decision‑support interfaces.
• Own the full software lifecycle for what is built: requirements translation, prototyping, development, testing, deployment, monitoring, maintenance, support and iterative improvement.
• Partner closely with scientists, breeders, analysts and business stakeholders to translate ambiguous problems into usable, reliable products.
• Help embed AI into real workflows with appropriate traceability, security, auditability and human oversight.
• Continuously evaluate how modern AI is changing software paradigms, and apply AI tools to improve engineering practices, team productivity and solution quality.
• Contribute to governed AI delivery by ensuring applications are secure, observable, maintainable and aligned with approved architecture and data patterns.
• Collaborate with the AI / MLOps Architect on model integration, serving patterns, evaluation flows, observability and production operations.
• Contribute to architecture discussions, design reviews, backlog shaping and solution trade‑off decisions.
• Communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing, with technical and non‑technical teams.
• Domestic and international travel required up to 10%.
• Represent Driscoll’s in an ethical and professional manner during all interactions with growers, co‑workers, suppliers, customers and the business community at large.
• Ensure the security of Driscoll’s confidential and proprietary information and materials.

• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, full‑stack development or product engineering, including ownership of production systems.
• Expert‑level hands‑on experience across modern full‑stack technologies such as Postgre
  
  SQL/MySQL, Node.js/Express, Type Script, React, Python and FastAPI.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including API design, data modeling, testing strategies, observability, secure design and maintainable architecture.
• Demonstrated ability to own problems end‑to‑end and ramp quickly across unfamiliar domains, technologies and workflows.
• Experience building integrations across internal platforms, vendor systems, APIs and workflow tooling.
• Experience shipping cloud‑based applications with CI/CD, source control, containerization and modern developer tooling.
• Strong communication skills; able to explain trade‑offs, architecture and design decisions to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Ability to work effectively in a dynamic, cross‑functional environment while living Driscoll’s values of passion, humility and trustworthiness.
• Strong experience with Microsoft product suite, including Visio, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Teams and SharePoint required.
• Travel and after‑hours support required.

• Depth in data engineering, ML engineering or applied data science.
• Ex…