Principal Software Engineer / Architect – AI, CoCounsel FDE

Refinitiv; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 159,000 - 295,000; Full time

Job summary

Thomson Reuters is seeking a Principal Software Engineer / Architect – AI for Forward Deployed Engineering to design, build, and deliver production AI solutions in complex customer environments. This role combines architectural leadership with hands-on development and direct customer interaction.

You will mentor teams, influence product capabilities, and translate customer learnings into scalable offerings while advancing enterprise-grade AI delivery, security, and reliability.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience at principal/architect level.
• Deep experience designing and delivering complex production software systems.
• Strong hands-on software engineering with recent production code contributions.
• Significant AI/ML, Generative AI, or LLM production experience.
• Experience architecting AI solutions that integrate with enterprise infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Lead highly complex technical and customer engagements from discovery through delivery.
• Architect, build, and deploy production AI solutions in enterprise environments.
• Write and review production code; guide engineers across levels.
• Provide technical direction on AI, software architecture, integration, security, and deployment.
• Work with customers to understand environments, constraints, and business needs.
• Translate customer learnings into scalable product capabilities.
• Identify patterns across engagements and improve the CoCounsel platform.
• Mentor engineers and influence technical strategy across teams.
• Evaluate new AI technologies to improve delivery, reliability, and outcomes.
• Communicate complex decisions clearly to engineers, leaders, and customers.

Skills

Leadership

AI/ML

Distributed systems

Cloud architecture

Production code

Customer engagements

Job description

Job Description Are you a Principal-level software engineer who enjoys solving complex customer problems while remaining deeply hands‑on with technology? Thomson Reuters is looking for a Principal Software Engineer / Architect – AI, CoCounsel Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) to help design, build, and deliver production AI solutions for some of our most complex customer environments. This is a highly technical, hands‑on individual contributor role. You will work directly with customers, product teams, and engineers to understand difficult business and technical problems, architect solutions, and personally contribute production code. You will also help translate what we learn from customer engagements into scalable capabilities that strengthen the broader CoCounsel product. We are looking for someone who combines Principal-level architecture and technical leadership with strong hands‑on engineering skills. This is not an architecture-only or advisory role.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead highly complex technical and customer engagements from discovery through production delivery.
• Architect, build, and deploy production AI solutions within customer and enterprise environments.
• Write production code regularly and review the work of Senior, Staff, and Forward Deployed Engineers.
• Provide technical direction across complex AI, software architecture, integration, security, and deployment decisions.
• Work directly with customers to understand their technical environments, constraints, and business needs.
• Partner closely with Product and Engineering to translate customer learnings into scalable product capabilities.
• Identify patterns across client engagements and recommend improvements to the core CoCounsel platform.
• Guide engineers through complex technical challenges through hands‑on development, architecture reviews, mentoring, and technical leadership.
• Influence technical strategy across Forward Deployed Engineering and related product and engineering teams.
• Evaluate new technologies and approaches that improve AI delivery, reliability, scalability, and customer outcomes.
• Communicate complex technical decisions clearly to engineering teams, product leaders, executives, and customer stakeholders.
• Serve as a senior technical representative for Thomson Reuters in high-impact customer engagements.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including significant technical leadership at the Principal, Architect, or highest individual-contributor level.
• Deep experience designing and delivering complex production software systems.
• Strong hands‑on software engineering skills with recent experience personally writing and reviewing production code.
• Significant experience with AI/ML, Generative AI, or LLM-powered systems in production environments.
• Experience architecting and delivering AI solutions that integrate with enterprise or customer-owned infrastructure.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, APIs, system integration, cloud architecture, scalability, reliability, and production operations.
• Demonstrated experience leading highly complex technical initiatives or customer engagements end-to-end.
• Ability to translate customer-specific technical work into reusable, scalable product capabilities.
• Experience providing technical guidance and mentorship to Senior and Staff-level engineers.
• Strong judgment around architecture, technical tradeoffs, security, reliability, and production deployment.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to work effectively with engineers, product teams, executives, and customer stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building or deploying LLM, agentic AI, RAG/retrieval, or other Generative AI systems in production.
• Experience in Forward Deployed Engineering, customer engineering, solutions engineering, or another deeply technical customer‑facing engineering environment.
• Experience working with enterprise customers and complex customer-owned infrastructure.
• Experience operating within legal technology, financial services, professional services, or other highly regulated environments.
• Familiarity with security, privacy, governance, or fiduciary-grade requirements associated with enterprise AI deployments.
• Demonstrated technical presence through open‑source contributions, technical publications, conference presentations, patents, industry leadership, or equivalent technical recognition.
• Experience influencing product strategy based on direct customer and field experience.

The base compensation range varies across locations. Eligible office location(s) for this role include one or more of the following: New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and/or Irvine, CA; McLean, VA; Washington, DC. The base compensation range for the role in any of those locations is $183,100 USD - $340,000 USD. For any eligible US locations, unless otherwise noted, the base compensation range for this role is $158,900 USD - $295,100 USD. 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. Base pay is one part of a comprehensive Total Reward program which also includes flexible and supportive benefits and other wellbeing programs. This role may also be eligible for an Annual Bonus based on a combination of enterprise and individual performance.

What’s in it For You?

• Hybrid Work Model: We’ve adopted a flexible hybrid working environment for our office-based roles while delivering a seamless experience that is digitally and physically connected.
• Flexibility & Work-Life Balance: Flex My Way is a set of supportive workplace policies designed to help manage personal and professional responsibilities, whether caring for family, giving back to the community, or finding time to refresh and reset. This builds upon our flexible work arrangements, including work from anywhere for up to 8 weeks per year, empowering employees to achieve a better work‑life balance.
• Career Development and Growth: By fostering a culture of continuous learning and skill development, we prepare our talent to tackle tomorrow’s challenges and deliver real‑world solutions. Our Grow My Way programming and skills‑first approach ensures you have the tools and knowledge to grow, lead, and thrive in an AI‑enabled future.
• Industry Competitive Benefits: We offer comprehensive benefit plans to include flexible vacation, two company‑wide Mental Health Days off, access to the Headspace app, retirement savings, tuition reimbursement, employee incentive programs, and resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.
• Culture: Globally recognized, award‑winning reputation for inclusion and belonging, flexibility, work‑life balance, and more. We live by our values: Obsess over our Customers, Compete to Win, Challenge (Y)our Thinking, Act Fast / Learn Fast, and Stronger Together.
• Social Impact: Make an impact in your community with our Social Impact Institute. We offer employees two paid volunteer days off annually and opportunities to get involved with pro‑bono consulting projects and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives.
• Making a Real-World Impact: We are one of the few companies globally that helps its customers pursue justice, truth, and transparency. Together, with the professionals and institutions we serve, we help uphold the rule of law, turn the wheels of commerce, catch bad actors, report the facts, and provide trusted, unbiased information to people all over the world.

Our use of AI within the recruitment process Thomson Reuters utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support parts of our global recruitment process. Unless you opt‑out, our AI system will assess the information provided by you and compare it to the requirements listed for the role, and present the result to our recruitment personnel for further review. The AI system acts as a supporting tool, but there is always a human making the decision if you will be considered for the role.

About Us

Thomson Reuters informs the way forward by bringing together the trusted content and technology that people and organizations need to make the right decisions. We serve professionals across legal, tax, accounting, compliance, government, and media. Our products combine highly specialized software and insights to empower professionals with the data, intelligence, and solutions needed to make informed decisions, and to help institutions in their pursuit of justice, truth, and transparency. Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters, is a world leading provider of trusted journalism and news. We are powered by the talents of 26,000 employees across more than 70 countries, where everyone has a chance to contribute and grow professionally in flexible work environments. At a time when objectivity, accuracy, fairness, and transparency are under attack, we consider it our duty to pursue them.

To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law.

Thomson Reuters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer providing a drug-free workplace.

Thomson Reuters makes reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities, including veterans with disabilities, and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law.

If you reside in the United States and require an accommodation in the recruiting process, you may contact our Human Resources Department at [e-mail].

Disability accommodations in the recruiting process may include things like a sign language interpreter, making interview rooms accessible, providing assistive technology, or other relevant accommodations.

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More information about Thomson Reuters can be found on thomsonreuters.com.

At Thomson Reuters, we’re not riding the AI wave — we’re reshaping the future of professional work across law, tax, compliance, and journalism. Here, you will collaborate with smart, ambitious people who thrive on solving complex problems, delivering market-leading solutions, and innovating with curiosity and care.