Senior Software Engineer

Morningstar • Chicago, IL

17d • $153,317 • Hybrid

About The Position

This role focuses on architecting, optimizing, and developing Python-based applications and APIs, including asynchronous programming and event-based architectures using cloud-native services. The engineer will also be responsible for architecting and optimizing relational and vector databases, working with dataframes for data processing and analysis, and driving AI security, compliance, and governance strategies. The position involves researching and reviewing AI-driven enterprise platforms, defining and reviewing 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: Queue-based 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.
• 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

• Contributions to Python open-source projects or packages.

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