Senior Software Engineer

Morningstar • Chicago, IL

71d • Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to architect, optimize, and develop Python-based applications and APIs. This role involves working with relational and vector databases, driving AI security and governance strategies, and researching AI-driven enterprise platforms. You will also be responsible for defining technical documentation, setting architectural guidelines, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to align AI strategies with business needs. Remote work requests will be considered consistent with the company's remote work policy.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, or a related field, or foreign equivalent and 5 years of relevant experience as a Software Engineer, Application Development Associate, or in a related position.
• Master's degree in Computer Science, or a related field, or foreign equivalent and 3 years of relevant experience as a Software Engineer, Application Development Associate, or in a related position.
• Database engineering management through RDBMS (SQL Server, PostgreSQL) including design, normalization, optimization, sharding, ACID transactions, and migrations.
• Python Development: Production applications, APIs (calling and invoking, Rest API’s) for data preprocessing.
• Object-oriented programming in Python/Java, including OOP design patterns and UML architecture.
• Data processing and visualization by using QlikView and Python (Pandas, Plotly, Matplotlib).
• Agile development practices with emphasis on customer-centric delivery.
• Cloud and infrastructure management by using various cloud services such as AWS S3, Aurora, RDS, API Gateway, and AWS Lambda.
• Machine learning and statistical methods, including natural language processing (NLP) and embeddings.
• Version control and CI/CD (Git, application deployment and monitoring tools).
• Authoring technical documentation for developers, technical, and non-technical users.
• Vector Databases & Retrieval: Weaviate, Pinecone, GraphQL-based querying, AI-powered retrieval.
• Scalability & Performance: Queuebased request handling (SQS, Celery), event-driven architectures, caching using in-memory data structures such as Redis.
• AI Adoption: Driving AI tool adoption within enterprises.
• Multiprovider integration (OpenAI, Anthropic, MistralAI, etc.), Retrieval augmented generation, function calling, structured outputs, conversational memory.
• Prompt Engineering: Chain-ofthought prompting, prompt caching, zero-shot prompting.
• Agentic Frameworks: LangGraph or AutoGen for building agentic orchestrations.
• Feature Flagging tools such as Split or CloudBees.
• Financial AI Applications: Investment-related AI, financial data analysis.
• Contributions to Python open-source projects or packages.
• LLM Understanding & Safety: Transformers, attention mechanisms, fine-tuning, hallucination mitigation, AI safety guardrails.
• Must possess unrestricted right to work in the U.S. in this position.

Nice To Haves

• Will accept any suitable combination of education, training, and experience.

Responsibilities

• Architecting, optimizing and developing Python-based applications and APIs (FastAPI, Flask, RESTful services), including asynchronous programming and event-based architectures using cloud-native services (20%).
• Architecting, optimizing relational and vector databases (PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, query optimization, indexes, replicas, migrations, Weaviate, Pinecone) and working with dataframes for data processing and analysis (SQL-based agents) (20%).
• Driving AI security, compliance, and governance strategies (hallucination mitigation, ethical AI practices, AI guardrails) (10%).
• Architecting, researching and reviewing AI-driven enterprise platforms (retrieval-augmented generation, LLM fine-tuning, AI governance, model optimization) (20%).
• Defining and reviewing technical documentation, setting architectural guidelines, enforcing best coding practices, conducting design reviews, and ensuring maintainability and scalability of codebases (10%).
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams to align AI strategies with business needs and technical requirements (20%).

Benefits

• 100% 401k match up to 6% of salary
• Stock Ownership Potential
• Company provided life insurance - 1x salary + commission
• Comprehensive health benefits (medical/dental/vision) including potential premium discounts and company-provided HSA contributions (up to $500-$2,000 annually) for specific plans and coverages
• Additional medical Wellness Incentives - up to $300-$600 annual
• Company-provided long- and short-term disability insurance
• Trust-Based Time Off
• 6-week Paid Sabbatical Program
• 6-Week Paid Family Caregiving Leave
• Competitive 8-24 Week Paid Parental Leave
• Adoption Assistance
• Leadership Coaching & Formal Mentorship Opportunities
• Annual Flex Stipend - $1000 annually to cover personal education & well-being expenses
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Charitable Matching Gifts program
• Dollars for Doers volunteer program
• Paid volunteering days
• 15+ Employee Resource & Affinity Groups

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior