Staff Software Engineer - Applied AI

AI Engineering @ Ironclad

Ironclad is accelerating its AI initiatives to transform how contracts are built, managed & executed across an organization. We're looking for an AI/ML Engineer to help shape the future of legal AI. In this role, you'll work with cutting-edge technologies such as Context Engineering, LLM Tuning / Post Training, Evaluation Frameworks to develop state-of-the-art models and intelligent systems that power product features used by leading legal teams.

You'll partner closely with product managers and designers to translate user needs into AI-powered product capabilities. You'll also lead efforts in model evaluation, iteration, and deployment—ensuring our systems are robust, explainable, and continuously improving. As part of our end-to-end ownership model, you'll contribute to the MLOps stack to ensure our models are scalable, reliable, and performant in production.

What you'll be doing:

• Build and tune models and AI capabilities that ingest legal documents, extract key information, and deliver actionable insights to customers
• Implementing backend services that power document understanding, classification, and natural language search
• 2 years of previous experience exploring and applying cutting-edge techniques in NLP, LLM integration, Prompt / Context Engineering, and semantic search to advance Ironclad's AI/ML vision
• 2 years of previous experience designing and maintaining robust systems for context management, model training / tuning, orchestration, evaluation & inference, with a focus on scalability, reliability, and observability
• 2 years of previous experience developing and scaling retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems and agent-based orchestration frameworks for complex legal workflows
• Help build foundational AI/ML infrastructure, including tools for experimentation, model versioning, and online/offline performance monitoring
• Partner closely with product managers and designers to shape user-facing AI experiences and deliver value through APIs and intelligent features

Required skills:

• BS or advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
• Experience working with large language models (e.g., GPT, Claude) or building RAG systems
• Experience with embedding models and vector databases
• Experience in training, evaluating, and serving AI/ML models
• 7+ years of hands-on experience with Python, backend service development, and RESTful APIs
• Experience in NLP techniques such as text classification, entity extraction, document understanding, or question answering
• Proficiency with AI frameworks and APIs (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, HuggingFace , OpenAI , LangChain)
• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g., GCP, AWS, Azure)
• Solid understanding of Git or other version control systems
• Strong engineering fundamentals and attention to code quality, testing, and maintainability
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills
• Passion for building AI products that solve real-world customer problems

Nice to have:

• Familiarity with Vertex AI or other managed ML platforms
• Experience working with PDF and DOCX parsing for document ingestion
• Comfort with Docker and containerized development
• Familiarity with CI/CD systems (e.g., GitHub Actions, CircleCI)
• Monitoring and observability with tools like Datadog or equivalent
• Experience with data processing and analysis using tools like SQL, Pandas, NumPy, or PySpark

Benefits:

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 401k
• Wellness reimbursement
• Take what you need vacation policy
• Generous parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers

Base Salary Range - Senior: $180,000 - $200,000

Base Salary Range - Staff: $210,000 - $235,000

The base salary range represents the minimum and maximum of the salary range for this position based at our San Francisco headquarters. The actual base salary offered for this position will depend on numerous factors, including individual proficiency, anticipated performance, and the location of the selected candidate. Our base salary is just one component of Ironclad's competitive total rewards package, which also includes equity awards (a new hire grant, along with opportunities for additional awards throughout your tenure), competitive health and wellness benefits, and a commitment to career growth and development.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.