Lead Software Engineer AI (Staff Engineer)

Thomson Reuters; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 140,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Flexible vacation

Volunteer days

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

Thomson Reuters is seeking a Lead Software Engineer AI (Staff Engineer) to own backend and AI orchestration for Audit Suite, shaping patterns for MCP servers, agents, and scalable infra. You will work across teams to deliver production-grade AI workflows at scale and guide engineering direction in an AI-native organization.

You will design end-to-end backend systems (C#/.NET, Python, PostgreSQL, AWS) and drive reliability, observability, and performance for millions of documents and AI

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years cumulative experience with 2+ years in a lead role and 5+ years in full-stack development.
• Experience with C#, .NET, ASP.NET Core, relational databases and cloud providers (AWS preferred).
• Front-end proficiency: JavaScript/TypeScript, HTML, CSS; modern frameworks (React/Angular).
• Strong background in distributed systems, APIs, observability, and performance.
• Proven track record leading large projects end-to-end, with stakeholder collaboration.
• Excellent communication skills; partner with product, design, and ML teams.
• Interest in AI-native software, LLMs, agents, retrieval, and related patterns.

Responsibilities

• Define architectural patterns for MCP servers, agents, LLM usage, experimentation, and scalable infra.
• Lead production-scale systems serving millions of documents and AI interactions.
• Collaborate across engineering, product, UX, and AI labs; mentor engineers.
• Shape roadmap, technical strategy, and engineering culture, including testing and rollout.
• Own end-to-end backend architecture to integrate heterogeneous systems and AI workflows.
• Develop AI orchestration: routing, tool calling, MCP servers, multi-step workflows, safety, and error handling.

Skills

C# & .NET

Python

JavaScript / TypeScript

SQL / Relational DBs

AWS / Azure

Distributed systems

AI/ML systems

Communication & leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering or equivalent

Tools

ASP.NET Core

PostgreSQL / SQL Server

Python (FastAPI)

AWS / cloud

GIT / CI pipelines

OpenAI / Anthropic APIs

React / Angular

Job description

Thomson Reuters products power the professionals who are shaping the world. Our platforms drive legal, tax, accounting and audit products, including Cloud Audit Suite—a connected set of products spanning Engagement Manager and Guided Assurance. As a Lead Software Engineer AI (Staff Engineer AI), you will own core backend and AI orchestration systems that turn frontier models into reliable, production‑grade workflows at scale. You will also help drive our shift to an engineering‑led, AI‑native organization, one where AI writes much of the code and engineers stay in the loop to provide judgment, architecture, and direction where it matters most.

About The Role

You will be a Lead Software Engineer AI (Staff Engineer) responsible for the architecture and system design of Audit Suite.

• Shape the team's AI and patterns: Define patterns for building MCP servers, designing agents, novel uses of LLMs, experimentation, and scalable infrastructure. Your decisions will influence your product area and adjacent teams, not just a single feature.
• Work at real production scale: Build and evolve systems that operate over millions of documents, highly structured tax data, ever‑changing laws, and thousands of concurrent AI interactions from accountants doing time‑sensitive work.
• Small teams, big surface area: Interact and lead across several teams of engineers, product, UX design and AI Labs partners to research, design and ship products quickly, with direct access to product leadership and customers.
• Great fit for people who enjoy and thrive at setting technical direction, mentoring senior engineers, and spending most of their time in the code and architecture of AI systems.
• Shape the platform integration strategy across new and existing Thomson Reuters audit systems to provide world‑class content and solutions for our customers.

What You’ll Do

Technical leadership and cross‑functional influence

• Lead multi‑quarter initiatives that cut across AI, product, and infra (e.g., a new orchestration layer, a low‑latency retrieval system, or a unified knowledge base).
• Mentor senior and mid‑level engineers, raising the bar on system design, code quality, and AI integration practices across the org.
• Be a go‑to expert in new model capabilities, collaborating closely with AI/ML engineers, researchers, designers, and PMs to translate industry improvements into reliable, user‑facing workflows that accountants trust.
• Help shape the team’s roadmap, technical strategy, and engineering culture – from experimentation practices to testing, rollout, and postmortems.

Design and Own AI‑First Backend Systems

• Own the end‑to‑end architecture and design of backend services (C#/.NET, Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, AWS, Vercel) that integrate and orchestrate across heterogeneous systems and technology stacks, powering generative AI agents, complex workflows and document‑centric experiences.
• Build and evolve AI orchestration: routing, tool calling, MCP servers, multi‑step workflows, safety and guardrails, and robust error handling around third‑party LLMs (OpenAI, Anthropic, and others).

Scale, Reliability, and Performance

• Design for high‑throughput, low‑latency AI workloads: caching, queuing, rate‑limiting, model failover, and cost/performance trade‑offs.
• Work with large‑scale data: millions of documents, retrieval and search, vector stores, and indexing strategies tailored to tax and accounting use cases.
• Establish and refine SLOs, observability, and incident response for AI systems that must be correct, auditable, and trustworthy in professional workflows.

About You

You are a fit for the position of Lead Software Engineer AI (Staff Engineer) if your background includes:

Required Experience & Skills

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Overall 10+ years cumulative experience with 2 years in a lead role and minimum 5+ years full‑stack development, building scalable cloud‑based applications, web services, APIs and AI‑driven products.
• C#, .NET expertise and experience with production systems using frameworks like ASP.NET Core, relational databases (SQL Server, PostgreSQL or equivalent), and a major cloud provider (AWS preferred, Azure).
• Experience architecting and implementing accessible front‑end solutions, including JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS; experience with modern JavaScript frameworks, e.g., Angular, React.
• Strong background in distributed systems: data modeling, API contracts, observability, resilience patterns, and performance tuning under load.
• Proven track record leading large, complex projects end‑to‑end: architecture, execution, rollout, and long‑term operation.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to partner with product, design, and ML teams in a fast‑moving environment.
• Demonstrated interest in AI systems and new engineering paradigms: LLMs, agents, retrieval, or similar – you care about what “AI‑native” software should look like.

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Experience designing and implementing CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions).
• Hands‑on experience integrating LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic) into production applications, including prompt/response management, cost controls, and safety considerations.
• Experience with AI‑adjacent infrastructure: vector databases, embeddings, semantic search, or custom retrieval pipelines.
• Opinions and experience around automated testing, reliability, and release practices for systems with non‑deterministic model behavior.
• Prior experience in domains where correctness, auditability, and compliance matter (fintech, tax, audit, legal).

New Position: This position is open due to an existing vacancy to support our evolving business needs.

What’s in it For You?

• Hybrid Work Model: Flexible hybrid working environment (2‑3 days a week in the office depending on the role) while delivering a seamless digitally and physically connected experience.
• Flexibility & Work‑Life Balance: Policies designed to help manage personal and professional responsibilities, including work from anywhere for up to 8 weeks per year.
• Career Development and Growth: Culture of continuous learning and skill development, including Grow My Way programming and skills‑first approach.
• Industry Competitive Benefits: Comprehensive benefit plans, flexible vacation, two company‑wide mental health days off, Headspace app, retirement savings, tuition reimbursement, employee incentive programs, and resources for wellbeing.
• Culture: Globally recognized reputation for inclusion and belonging, flexibility, work‑life balance, and strong values.
• Social Impact: Paid volunteer days and pro‑bono consulting opportunities, ESG initiatives.
• Real‑World Impact: Helping customers pursue justice, truth, transparency, and provide trusted, unbiased information worldwide.

Pay Range

For any eligible US locations, unless otherwise noted, the base compensation range for this role is $127,400 USD - $236,600 USD. For Ontario, Canada, the base compensation range is $140,000 CAD - $175,000 CAD. Base pay is positioned within the range based on several factors including an individual’s knowledge, skills and experience with consideration given to internal equity. This role may also be eligible for an annual bonus based on a combination of enterprise and individual performance.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Thomson Reuters is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. We are proud to provide a drug‑free workplace and comply with local laws that require upfront disclosure of expected pay range for a position. We seek talented, qualified employees regardless of race, color, sex/gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. We make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities, including veterans with disabilities and sincerely held religious beliefs. If you require accommodations in the recruiting process, you may contact HR.Leave‑[e-mail].