Staff Software Engineer

Ontra • Concord, CA

8d • Hybrid

About The Position

Ontra is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to build purpose-built, AI-powered solutions that transform unstructured legal documents into actionable data for private-market workflows. The role involves developing features for contract markup, extracting obligations from fund documents, and converting complex legal text into structured data used by investment firms.

The engineer will tackle complex technical challenges, architect robust and scalable systems, and collaborate across teams. They will drive project direction and continuous improvement while partnering closely with product and design to shape product decisions. The role requires production AI and LLM experience, including the ability to define evaluation frameworks, reason about failure modes, and determine where AI provides genuine product value.

Candidates for this opening must be based in New York and work on-site at the New York office three days per week. Occasional travel is required, typically at least twice a year for team and company offsites.

Requirements

• At least 10 years of software engineering experience, including a track record of designing and delivering complex, production-grade systems.
• Daily use of AI coding tools, with the ability to review, verify, or reject their output and recognize when not to trust it.
• Proven experience delivering features or solutions with direct impact on revenue growth, savings, or operational efficiencies.
• Ability to solve complex technical problems creatively and efficiently.
• Excellent verbal and written communication with technical and non-technical colleagues and stakeholders.
• Must be based in New York and work on-site at the New York office three days per week.

Nice To Haves

• Experience building LLM features in production, including RAG, agents, prompting, or evaluations.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship AI-powered product features and use AI tools throughout the development workflow, from prototyping to code review.
• Set technical direction across product areas and make architectural decisions that balance near-term delivery with long-term scalability.
• Identify high-leverage problems, prioritize initiatives, and drive work from ambiguous problem statements through production.
• Establish engineering patterns, improve tooling, address systemic quality issues, and use code reviews to help develop other engineers.
• Partner with product and design as a technical thought partner, advising on feasibility, costs, and technical investments that could unlock product value.

Benefits

• Paid flexible time off policy.
• Paid parental leave and benefits.
• Employer-supported retirement contributions, varying by country.
• Monthly phone and internet reimbursement.
• Company-sponsored learning and development resources, department budgets for professional development, and a robust onboarding program.
• Various options for medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Twice-yearly team offsites for in-person collaboration.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed