Staff Software Engineer - AI II

Thomson Reuters•Frisco, TX

9d•$137,100 - $254,700•Hybrid

About The Position

The Staff Software Engineer - AI II will help define and build the AI foundation powering future Westlaw experiences. The role is part of Global Westlaw Engineering, which builds and operates the technology behind Westlaw and develops AI-driven legal research solutions for legal professionals worldwide. The engineer will work across engineering, AI, data, platform, and product disciplines on agentic systems, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), AI platforms, and large-scale knowledge services. This hands-on individual-contributor role combines architecture and implementation with technical strategy, innovation, mentoring, governance, and cross-functional delivery. The engineer will lead the design of enterprise-scale AI systems and remain engaged across the stack, from AI orchestration and retrieval to APIs, microservices, and web interfaces. They will help ensure AI systems are trustworthy, secure, scalable, observable, and valuable to customers.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience.
At least 8 years of software engineering experience, including at least 4 years in senior or lead roles on AI/ML systems.
Software engineering experience with AI expertise, rather than a primarily data-scientist or researcher background.
Hands-on generative AI, RAG, or LLM-based systems experience spanning discovery, architecture, agentic tools, evaluation, deployment, and metrics.
Expert-level proficiency in Python or another object-oriented language, with strong backend service and API design skills.
Solid understanding of ML principles, evaluation methodologies, and distributed systems.
Working experience with AI/ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
Advanced experience with AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform.
Experience integrating AI models into large-scale production systems through APIs, data pipelines, and cloud-native architectures.
Strong technical leadership and mentoring experience as an individual contributor, with communication skills to influence senior stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree.
Experience leading technical direction for teams building agent-based systems or enterprise integrations with AI APIs such as OpenAI or Anthropic.
Advanced knowledge of vector databases, embeddings, semantic search, and information retrieval.
Hands-on knowledge graph experience, including graph data modeling, ontologies and taxonomies, graph databases such as Neo4j or Amazon Neptune, and combining graphs with LLMs through methods such as GraphRAG and entity extraction.
Expertise in legal, tax, accounting, or another regulated industry, or in large-scale search platforms.
Successful AI product launches and experience scaling AI systems to enterprise customers.
Experience with AI governance, model risk management, and regulatory compliance.
Publications, patents, or speaking experience in AI/ML.

Responsibilities

Design and lead implementation of enterprise-scale AI systems, including multi-component pipelines, RAG and knowledge graph architectures, and autonomous agents with multi-step reasoning.
Work hands-on across the technology stack, including AI orchestration, RAG, API gateways, microservices, and modern web UIs.
Evaluate emerging AI techniques, conduct proof-of-concept work, and assess technical feasibility for AI-driven features.
Stay current with AI research, translate relevant insights into technical roadmaps, and represent the organization at industry conferences and events.
Make architecture decisions and translate business requirements into scalable technical specifications.
Mentor senior and junior software engineers.
Champion MLOps and LLMOps practices and governance for the AI model lifecycle.
Design and implement testing, monitoring, and observability for AI systems at scale.
Ensure AI systems comply with ethical AI principles, security standards, and regulatory requirements.
Partner with AI researchers, engineering leadership, design, and product to turn AI capabilities into customer-facing applications.
Set technical priorities and stay engaged through delivery to help ensure AI investments produce measurable business value.
Optimize AI systems for latency, cost, and user experience, and influence product strategy through technical expertise.

Benefits

Flexible hybrid work environment for office-based roles.
Work-from-anywhere arrangements for up to 8 weeks per year.
Flexible vacation and supportive workplace policies for work-life balance.
Two company-wide Mental Health Days off.
Access to the Headspace app.
Retirement savings and a 401(k) plan with company match.
Tuition reimbursement.
Employee incentive programs; the role may also be eligible for an annual bonus based on enterprise and individual performance.
Resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing, including fitness reimbursement and access to an Employee Assistance Program.
Paid volunteer days: two annually, with opportunities to participate in pro-bono consulting projects and ESG initiatives.
Health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance.
Paid holidays, sick and safe paid time off, parental leave, and sabbatical leave.
Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts.
Adoption and surrogacy assistance.
Employee Stock Purchase Plan.
Commuter benefits.
Optional hospital, accident and sickness insurance, optional life and AD&D insurance, and group legal identity theft protection benefit, paid 100% by the employee.
Access to a 529 Plan.