Principal Python Engineer

cognee; Berlin; Vor Ort; EUR 120.000 - 160.000; Vollzeit

Zusammenfassung

A leading AI technology firm in Berlin seeks a Principal Engineer for their Python SDK. This is a pivotal role that involves owning the SDK's technical vision, ensuring high performance and reliability, and designing intuitive APIs for diverse users. Candidates should possess over 8 years of software engineering experience, deep expertise in Python, and a proven track record in SDK/API design. This position offers top-tier compensation, equity, and a high degree of influence over product direction.

Leistungen

Top-of-market compensation

Meaningful equity

Ownership over core product

Direct access to founders

High autonomy, low bureaucracy

Qualifikationen

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with ownership of critical systems.
• Mastery of Python, including async patterns and SDK design best practices.
• Proven experience building and maintaining widely-used SDKs.

Aufgaben

• Define and own the long-term architecture of the Python SDK.
• Design intuitive and composable APIs for various users.
• Optimize SDK performance for high-throughput workloads.
• Decide on SDK vs platform responsibilities.
• Act as technical steward for open-source SDK.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams.
• Establish best engineering practices for the SDK.

Kenntnisse

Python Expertise

SDK / API Design

Technical Leadership

Open-Source Experience

Distributed Systems Understanding

AI / Data Systems Familiarity

Jobbeschreibung

Overview

We are looking for a Principal Engineer / Lead for the Python SDK to own the technical vision, architecture, and execution of Cognee's primary developer interface. This role is critical: the Python SDK is the product for most users. You will set the standard for SDK quality, ergonomics, performance, and long-term maintainability, while working closely with platform, infra, and product teams to ensure Cognee feels world-class for developers.

Responsibilities

• SDK Architecture & Technical Vision: Define and own the long-term architecture of the Cognee Python SDK, ensuring clarity, extensibility, and stability as usage scales.
• Developer Experience at Scale: Design APIs that feel intuitive, composable, and hard to misuse—serving both early-stage startups and large enterprises.
• Performance & Reliability: Optimize SDK performance for high-throughput workloads, large memory graphs, and production AI agent systems.
• API & Abstraction Design: Decide what belongs in the SDK vs the platform. Build clean abstractions over complex systems (vector stores, graphs, memory lifecycle).
• Open-Source Leadership: Act as the technical steward of the open-source SDK: reviews, RFCs, contribution guidelines, and community standards.
• Cross-Team Technical Leadership: Work closely with platform, infra, and DevRel to ensure the SDK cleanly integrates with control plane, databases, and deployment models.
• Quality & Engineering Excellence: Establish best practices around testing, versioning, backwards compatibility, documentation, and release processes.

Requirements

• Principal-Level Engineering 8+ years of software engineering experience, with clear ownership of critical systems or developer-facing platforms.
• Deep Python Expertise Mastery of Python, including async patterns, packaging, typing, performance optimization, and SDK design best practices.
• SDK / API Design Track Record Proven experience building and maintaining widely-used SDKs, libraries, or developer platforms.
• Distributed Systems Understanding Strong intuition for how SDKs interact with distributed backends, databases, and cloud infrastructure.
• AI / Data Systems Familiarity Experience with LLMs, vector databases, graph systems, or data-intensive applications.
• Technical Leadership Comfortable making high-impact architectural decisions and mentoring senior engineers without heavy management overhead.
• Open-Source Experience Prior experience maintaining or leading open-source projects used by external developers. Nice to have experience with agent frameworks, vector search, or graph databases. Background in developer tools, infra, or platform engineering.
• Strong opinions about API ergonomics and DX (and the ability to defend them). Experience scaling open-source projects with large external contributor bases.

Benefits

• Top-of-market compensation + meaningful equity
• Ownership over a core, business-critical product surface
• Direct access to founders and real influence on product direction
• High autonomy, low bureaucracy, high trust
• Opportunity to define the de facto memory SDK for AI agents