Senior Software Engineer (AI)

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About us

We at Focaldata are on a mission to close the "understanding gap" between what organisations believe about people and reality. By leveraging AI, we provide deeper, more accurate insights at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional methods. We have built an amazing team of research industry experts and great engineers to reimagine what is possible in research. We do impactful work with amazing organisations ranging from well-known brands to life-changing non-profits.

We are now looking for a Senior Software Engineer with extensive experience delivering high-quality code quickly, breaking down complex technical challenges into manageable tasks, and proactively unblocking team members to keep progress on track. Join us!

What you’ll do

• Deliver High-Standard Code: Develop clean, efficient, and maintainable code that meets the highest standards and prioritises simplicity over cleverness.
• Unblock Team Members: Identify blockers in the development process, proactively assist and guide fellow team members, and resolve technical roadblocks promptly to ensure smooth progress.
• Decompose Complex Tech Challenges: Break down complex, high-level product requirements into smaller, manageable technical deliverables. You will manage the breakdown of epics into tasks to ensure clear progress and communication.
• Provide Senior-Level Insight & Pragmatism: Bring your experience and seniority to the table by making well-considered decisions that balance trade-offs. Ensure that decisions, whether technical or architectural, are clearly communicated and understandable to both peers and leaders.
• Champion Quality & Best Practices: Operate in a startup tech team environment that is growing to the next level, and champion best practices to ensure scalability and maintainability.
• Go where you’re needed: We’re a small startup engineering team and while we really need expertise in AI, there will also be a need for you to contribute to a wide range of different software engineering work.

Who you are (skills and experience)

Essential

• 5+ years of coding experience (3+ years with Python building applications as opposed to purely scripting)
• Strong experience working with LLMs (large language models) in a practical, product-driven context.
• Experience with evaluation systems: Comfortable writing and leveraging evals to measure and improve system performance.
• Backend-heavy product experience: Solid background in backend engineering, ideally in products with complex infrastructure.
• Strong systems thinking: Ability to see the bigger picture, considering both short-term and long-term impacts of technical decisions.
• Autonomy: Proven ability to take ownership of projects, working end-to-end with minimal supervision while aligning with high-level, often ambiguous product requirements.
• Communication excellence: Ability to communicate complex technical concepts effectively at all levels - be it with your peers, your manager, or non-technical stakeholders.
• Problem-solving focus: A laser-like focus on identifying and solving critical path issues, ensuring progress for yourself and your team.

Nice-to-Have

• React experience would be a benefit
• DevOps experience: Direct experience managing deployment pipelines, monitoring, or infrastructure.
• Experience in mentoring junior developers, helping them grow and ensuring adherence to best practices.

Please note that our team is required to be in the office three days a week.

Focaldata is an equal opportunities employer. We believe in the value of a diverse and inclusive workforce for our business, team and customers. We encourage all applications regardless of age, disability, gender, marriage, pregnancy, maternity, race or nationality, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. We also understand that certain groups may not feel empowered to apply unless they match every single requirement. Please do apply even if you don’t match 100% of every single requirement!