Staff AI Software Engineer, Data Systems

About the role

The role involves owning the design and execution of data infrastructure that powers AI capabilities across the Brightwheel platform. You will be responsible for transforming messy, real-world operational data into structured, trustworthy datasets that fuel intelligent decision-making. This position requires deep collaboration with product, engineering, and customer-facing teams to ensure data systems align with evolving business needs. You will build the critical bridges between raw event streams and actionable insights for both internal teams and external enterprise customers. The work demands a balance of technical rigor and pragmatic delivery in a fast-paced, mission-critical environment. You will define and maintain data contracts and standards that enable scalable and secure integrations across the ecosystem. Ultimately, your contributions will directly impact the reliability and intelligence of tools used by millions of educators and families.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Own end to end data product ownership from discovery, scoping, and requirements validation through implementation, measurement, and continuous iteration.
• Apply AI tools and techniques to enhance your own engineering productivity and to build AI driven features that improve data quality and usability.
• Rapidly prototype solutions, validate hypotheses with stakeholders, and use deployed software to create alignment and clarity on complex problems.
• Elevate standards for code quality, system reliability, security, privacy, observability, and performance across data pipelines and platforms.
• Construct foundational data layers that enable reasoning across customer profiles, educational workflows, billing systems, classroom operations, and administrative processes.
• Architect data models, identity resolution strategies, and retrieval systems that ensure accuracy, provenance, and responsible access to sensitive information.
• Implement robust data contracts, uncertainty management practices, and access controls that support safe automation and regulatory compliance.
• Develop and maintain standardized integrations that deliver trusted data at scale to enterprise customers, partners, and government agencies.
• Collaborate closely with product managers to define success metrics, monitor outcomes, and drive data informed product decisions.
• Troubleshoot complex production issues by correlating logs, metrics, and traces to maintain high levels of reliability and user trust.
• Mentor other engineers by sharing best practices around data modeling, pipeline optimization, and secure integration patterns.
• Explore emerging techniques in retrieval, tool use, and orchestration to keep Brightwheel at the forefront of applied AI in education.
• Document systems thoroughly to ensure continuity, transparency, and ease of onboarding for new team members.
• Participate in on call rotations to support critical data infrastructure and respond to incidents promptly and effectively.

Requirements

• Bring a minimum of 5 years of professional software engineering experience in production environments.
• Demonstrate strong engineering fundamentals across systems, data, APIs, product surfaces, and infrastructure.
• Show a track record of owning solutions from initial problem definition through launch, iteration, and post launch improvement.
• Use AI tools and agents as integral components of your engineering workflow rather than treating them as experimental novelties.
• Provide concrete examples of how you have increased your own velocity while maintaining or raising quality standards.
• Highlight experiences where you automated manual processes for yourself, your team, or broader organizational workflows.
• Comfortably navigate ambiguous problem spaces and translate unclear requirements into implemented software solutions.
• Communicate clearly in both written and verbal formats and collaborate effectively with cross functional partners.
• Demonstrate a deep commitment to privacy, security, reliability, and earning customer trust through responsible data practices.

Nice to have

• Hands on experience shipping AI powered products, workflows, or internal tools to production environments.
• Practical background in retrieval augmented generation, evaluation frameworks, monitoring strategies, and orchestration patterns.
• Prior work in vertical SaaS, education technology, financial services, healthcare, customer relationship management, or ecommerce domains.
• A portfolio of personal projects, internal tools, open source contributions, writings, demos, or side projects that demonstrate builder energy and refined taste.
• Experience designing data systems that improved reliability for product, operational, or AI workflows both within and outside your organization.
• Familiarity with data modeling, identity resolution, provenance tracking, governance, and AI safe data access mechanisms.
• Experience delivering data platforms and integrations that meet the needs of regulated industries and government entities.

Practical notes

This role is based in the United States and requires eligibility to work in the country without sponsorship. The position is full time and remote, with no required travel. Candidates must be able to manage their schedules across US time zones to collaborate effectively with distributed teams.