Staff Software Developer 2

Haley & Aldrich, Inc.•San Diego, CA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Haley & Aldrich is seeking a Staff Software Developer to join their growing team in San Diego, CA. This full-time technical support role involves working with highly skilled professionals on diverse project teams in a dynamic environment. The position offers an excellent opportunity to be involved in a variety of projects for a diverse range of clients. The selected candidate will support the development of AI-enabled knowledge management, decision-support, and technology transfer platforms for environmental and engineering applications. This includes building and maintaining software systems that ingest and organize technical documents, generate embeddings, support retrieval-augmented generation workflows, connect to large language models, and deliver source-cited answers through secure web-based user interfaces. Initial work may focus on developing platforms for retrieving answers from technical reports and other materials using natural language queries. The role may also involve supporting the development of transferable AI skill libraries, structured instructions, scripts, and training resources to help practitioners apply general-purpose AI tools. This is an early-career role for a candidate with strong software development aptitude, demonstrated project work, and curiosity about applying AI to real-world environmental and engineering problems. Professional experience is preferred but not required, and candidates must submit a GitHub portfolio or equivalent public code portfolio. School, research, open-source, and hobby projects are welcome. This position is based in San Diego, CA and requires hybrid in-office work a minimum of three days per week. Remote candidates will not be considered.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Data Science, Software Engineering, Civil Engineering, or a related technical field.
Demonstrated software development project portfolio required; candidates must provide a GitHub portfolio or equivalent public code portfolio. School, research, open-source, and hobby projects are welcome.
Strong programming ability in Python and/or another modern programming language.
Familiarity with software development fundamentals, including data structures, APIs, databases, testing, debugging, and version control.
Experience using Git and GitHub or similar version control platforms.
Ability to learn new technologies quickly and apply them to practical project needs.
Interest in artificial intelligence, large language models, data pipelines, web applications, and applied technical problem solving.
Strong analytical, troubleshooting, written communication, and verbal communication skills.
Ability to work collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams, including software developers, engineers, scientists, and project managers.
Ability to work from the San Diego, CA office a minimum of three days per week; this is not a remote position.
Must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future visa sponsorship.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Data Science, Software Engineering, Civil Engineering, or a related technical field.
Experience with Python-based data pipelines, automation scripts, or backend services.
Experience with JavaScript, TypeScript, React, or similar web development frameworks.
Familiarity with large language models, LLM APIs, prompt engineering, AI agents, or retrieval-augmented generation.
Familiarity with embeddings, vector databases, semantic search, hybrid search, or citation-enabled AI applications.
Experience with Azure services, such as Azure AI Search, Azure Blob Storage, Azure AI Content Understanding, Azure OpenAI, or cloud-hosted PostgreSQL.
Experience with SQL, PostgreSQL, or relational database design.
Familiarity with Docker, CI/CD, automated testing, or cloud deployment workflows.
Interest in environmental consulting, civil engineering, environmental engineering, remediation, or technology transfer applications.
Experience developing technical documentation, user guides, or training materials for software tools.

Responsibilities

Assist with the design, development, testing, and maintenance of software applications that support AI-enabled knowledge management and decision-support platforms.
Develop and maintain data ingestion workflows for technical documents, tables, images, audio, video, and other structured or unstructured data sources.
Support implementation of retrieval-augmented generation workflows, including document chunking, metadata handling, vector embeddings, semantic search, and citation-enabled response generation.
Build and maintain backend services, APIs, databases, and data processing pipelines to support reliable platform operations.
Help develop secure web-based user interfaces for natural-language querying, citation display, file access, user feedback, and administrative workflows.
Work with cloud-based services, databases, and storage systems, including Azure AI Search, Azure Blob Storage, PostgreSQL, and related tools.
Write clean, maintainable, well-documented code using version control and collaborative software development practices.
Develop tests and participate in quality assurance/quality control activities to verify pipeline reliability, system performance, and response accuracy.
Collaborate with engineers, scientists, project managers, and AI specialists to translate technical project needs into practical software features.
Support development of reusable AI workflows, skill libraries, prompt templates, scripts, and training resources for environmental technology transfer.
Participate in user testing, pilot demonstrations, troubleshooting, and iterative product improvement.
Perform all work in accordance with company and client health and safety protocols.
Demonstrate the company’s foundational safety behaviors.