Senior AI Production Engineer — Python & Systems

Socket.dev; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 126,000 - 154,000; Full time

Job summary

StepStone is seeking a Senior Associate, AI Deployment & Production to join the Applied Engineering Solutions team within DATS. You will be an expert Python engineer driving productionization, API design, and optimization, with low-level language work as needed.

You will review research code, build scalable frameworks, and mentor analysts. The role demands 6+ years of software/data engineering, strong testing, and collaboration with QA, DevOps, and research teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent.
• 6+ years of software/data engineering with production ownership and leadership.
• Expert Python with production experience, testing, and packaging discipline.
• Production experience with Celery, Flask, and SQLAlchemy.
• Proficiency in at least one low-level language (C, C++, or Rust).
• Strong communication and ability to lead code reviews.

Responsibilities

• Review AI research projects and raise Python code quality.
• Build production framework for AI solutions with a well-designed API and REST endpoints.
• Translate research code to scalable, reliable production.
• Apply low-level language skills to optimize performance-critical paths.
• Lead optimization of PHP workloads or migrate logic to Python.
• Define tests, monitoring, and validation for AI pipelines.
• Contribute to shared frameworks and DevOps automation.
• Mentor analysts and act as a senior reviewer.

Skills

Python

Software engineering

Code review leadership

Communication skills

JIRA coordination

Mentorship

Async orchestration

CI/CD

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Tools

Celery

Flask

SQLAlchemy

Kubernetes

GitHub Actions

PHP

C

C++

Rust

Job description

StepStone is seeking a Senior Associate, AI Deployment & Production to join the Applied Engineering Solutions team within DATS. You will be an expert Python engineer driving productionization, API design, and optimization, with low-level language work as needed.

You will review research code, build scalable frameworks, and mentor analysts. The role demands 6+ years of software/data engineering, strong testing, and collaboration with QA, DevOps, and research teams.