Staff Software Engineer

CORTO; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible hybrid working

Gym membership

Sailing/yacht events

Career & learning opportunities

Job summary

CORTO's AI Paralegal team is seeking a founding software engineer to join a fast‑growing legaltech startup in Sydney. You will help design and build the next generation of AI‑driven legal workflows, collaborating with product and legal experts to ship high‑impact features.

You will own backend architecture, tackle complex AI‑driven tasks, and work in a serverless AWS environment. This is a hands‑on role with high visibility and scope to shape the product roadmap.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software development experience.
• Experience building service‑oriented architectures using Docker, Lambda and ECS.
• Experience with Python and/or TypeScript is advantageous.
• Experience with LLMs or generative AI systems.
• Experience with DynamoDB and MySQL/PostgreSQL.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain applications powering AI Paralegal workflows end‑to‑end.
• Build multimodal LLM pipelines over legal documents using Claude on AWS Bedrock.
• Improve LLM accuracy with schema validation and retries.
• Instrument the pipeline with metrics on error rates, latency, and cost.
• Collaborate with legal domain experts to define schemas and criteria.
• Operate your code on AWS in a Serverless Python monorepo.

Skills

8+ yrs exp

Backend

AI/LLMs

Python

TypeScript

AWS

Docker

Serverless

Tools

DynamoDB

MySQL/PostgreSQL

AWS Lambda

AWS ECS

AWS Bedrock

Job description

Early stage startup, part of a global established LegalTech business - be a founding Engineer for AI Paralegal!

• Small, agile team - limited tech debt
• Flexible, Sydney based hybrid role
• Build the next generation of legal software at the intersection of AI and automation.

About AI Paralegal

AI Paralegal is part of CORTO, a cutting-edge software company dedicated to revolutionising the legal industry. Our mission is to empower legal practitioners with AI-driven solutions that streamline their workflow, boost productivity, and provide more efficient client service.

AI is transforming the legal industry and CORTO is at the forefront of this change. There is a huge opportunity for law firms to save time, money and to add more value to their client base. This is where AI Paralegal comes in. AI Paralegal is a startup transforming the way legal work is done to unlock new value for law firms and their clients. We will be utilising our in-house expertise and the power of AI to save hours of work and transform the way law firms provide access to legal justice.

Built on Adieu's advanced AI technology, AI Paralegal functions as a digital paralegal drafting documents, managing workflows, and handling repetitive legal tasks with speed and precision. By integrating seamlessly with LEAP's ecosystem, it empowers firms to increase efficiency, scale capacity, and drive measurable profitability from every matter.

What you'll do

Working with experts in the legal industry and a visionary product team you will revolutionise how legal professionals work - creating smarter, faster, and more meaningful ways for them to deliver exceptional outcomes to their clients. You'll join as a one of the founding Engineers. AI Paralegal has an ambitious roadmap and we're looking for Engineers bringing strong Backend skills to help take this product from 0 to 1.

You’ll play a key role in shaping architecture, driving technical excellence, and solving complex problems that have real-world impact. This is a hands‑on, high‑impact role where strategic thinking, deep technical expertise, and curiosity come together to advance our mission of transforming how legal professionals work.

To make this happen you will:

• Design, build, and maintain applications and services that power AI Paralegal workflows end-to-end — from document ingestion through extraction and delivery into practice management systems.
• Build multimodal LLM pipelines over legal documents using Claude on AWS Bedrock
• Improve LLM accuracy with schema validation and self-correcting retry loops that feed specific violations back to the model
• Instrument the pipeline; error rates, retries, token spend, latency so optimisation is evidence-led.
• Introduce new techniques as scale demands: prompt caching, embeddings for cheaper entity matching, retrieval of gold‑standard exemplars for stubborn document types, and evaluation harnesses for prompt and model changes.
• Partner with legal domain experts to turn fuzzy requirements into precise schemas, validators, and acceptance criteria.
• Operate what you build on AWS (Lambda, Step Functions, DynamoDB, S3, Bedrock) in a Serverless Framework Python monorepo.

What you'll bring

• 8+ years of experience in software development
• Experience building service‑oriented architecture including using Docker, Lambda, ECS etc
• Strong experience in Python and Typescript would be advantageous, but all language experience is considered
• Demonstrated ability to work with LLMs or generative AI systems - understanding their constraints, strengths, and how to build around their limitations.
• Experience with DynamoDB, MySQL/PostgresSQL, etc
• Experience implementing and refining monitoring and observability across the platform

You are the type of person who

• Thrives in dynamic environments, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, make high‑stakes decisions while maintaining focus on project goals.
• Is passionate about staying at the cutting edge of development technologies especially AI
• Has a bias towards action
• Is comfortable asking for forgiveness rather than permission.
• Thrives on problem solving and bringing innovation to life
• Is adaptable. This is a rapidly changing environment; priorities can change but the vision and mission drive you forward.
• Value collaboration and working closely with your teammates and stakeholders

AI Paralegal is an inclusive, people‑first company committed to breaking down institutional barriers that keep people from reaching their potential. If you meet some, but not all the requirements above, we encourage you to still submit your application.

Why join CORTO?

• Your work matters. We solve real world problems that improve and support local, everyday law firms. So they can do their best work for the people in the communities they serve.
• Make an impact. You won't be another ‘cog in the wheel' here. We give full trust and autonomy for you to be heard, to work on big & complex projects - and to make a real difference.
• Work with a group of authentic, passionate people who love what they do.
• Genuine startup energy - small team, fast decisions, real trajectory, backed by one of the largest legal software companies in the world.
• Flexible and hybrid working. We engage, share, and collaborate on ideas and workflows.
• Career and learning opportunities - we move fast and need smart people to get us where we're going. We are a scaling business and looking for people who want to grow with us.
• Have fun with us. Celebrations. Socials. Sports teams. Access to sailing and yacht events.
• We value your well‑being with additional time off, gym membership and other perks.
• Fast‑paced tech environment, if we don't disrupt ourselves someone else will do it!
• Access to LEAP Home - a program unique to the ATI Group to support you in buying your primary residence.