Staff Software Engineer - AI I

Thomson Reuters•Frisco, TX

1d•$127,400 - $272,600•Hybrid

About The Position

The Staff Software Engineer will help define and build the AI foundation for the next generation of Westlaw experiences. The role works across AI orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), knowledge services, APIs, microservices, and modern web interfaces to deliver intelligent, trustworthy, and high-performing legal research solutions. The position combines hands-on engineering with architecture, technical strategy, mentorship, and cross-functional collaboration. It also advances AI governance and MLOps/LLMOps practices while ensuring AI products meet security, quality, regulatory, and operational standards.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience; a Master’s degree is preferred.
At least 5 years of software engineering experience, including 3 years in senior or lead roles on AI/ML systems.
Software engineering background with AI expertise, rather than a primary background as a data scientist or researcher.
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 machine learning 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.
Technical leadership and mentoring experience as an individual contributor, with communication skills to influence senior stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

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 GraphRAG or entity extraction.
Domain expertise in legal, tax, accounting, other regulated industries, or 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 stack, from AI orchestration and RAG through API gateways, microservices, and modern web user interfaces.
Evaluate emerging AI techniques, conduct proof-of-concept work, assess technical feasibility, track AI research, and translate insights into technical roadmaps.
Represent the organization at industry conferences and events.
Make design 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 remain engaged through delivery to ensure AI investments produce measurable business value.
Optimize systems for latency, cost, and user experience, and influence product strategy through technical expertise.