Senior Associate, AI Deployment and Production - Data & Technology Solutions

StepStone Group; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 126,000 - 154,000; Full time

Job summary

StepStone Group in San Diego seeks a Senior Associate, AI Deployment & Production, to own the productionization framework for AI solutions and optimize performance across Python and low-level code.

You will lead production-quality design, mentor teammates, integrate with AI pipelines, and collaborate with QA and DevOps to deliver reliable, scalable systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer science, Engineering, a quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 6+ years of software/data engineering experience with production ownership and leadership.
• Expert Python with strong testing and packaging discipline and production experience.
• Production experience with Celery, Flask, and SQLAlchemy data modeling.
• Proficiency in at least one low-level language (C, C++, or Rust).
• Proven ability to lead code reviews and mentor a team.
• Strong communication and Jira coordination skills.

Responsibilities

• Review AI research projects and raise Python code quality.
• Build out the production framework: package API, async orchestration, REST endpoints, data models.
• Take research code to scalable production with quality ownership.
• Optimize performance with low-level languages as needed.
• Lead optimization of PHP workloads or migrate logic to Python/low-level services.
• Partner with QA to define tests and acceptance criteria; monitor AI pipelines.
• Contribute to shared frameworks and DevOps (GitHub Actions, Helm).
• Mentor analysts and associates as a senior reviewer for AI/engineering work.

Skills

Expert Python

Celery

Flask

SQLAlchemy

C/C++/Rust

Code review leadership

Mentorship

Education

Bachelor's in CS/ Engineering

Tools

GitHub Actions

Kubernetes

PHP familiarity

Job description

We are global private markets specialists delivering tailored investment solutions, advisory services, and impactful, data driven insights to the world’s investors. Leveraging the power of our platform and our peerless intelligence across sectors, strategies, and geographies, we help identify the advantages and the answers our clients need to succeed.

Position Overview

The Senior Associate, AI Deployment & Production will be a senior member of the Applied Engineering Solutions team within StepStone’s DATS department. This person is an expert Python engineer who helps the AI research team write better code and brings their work to robust production. They own the productionization framework around AI solutions — a clean, well-designed package API, async orchestrators (Celery or equivalent), sensible REST endpoints, and the data models the solution requires — and review AI projects to raise code quality. The role also carries low-level language depth (C, C++, or Rust) used for optimization, including rewriting performance-critical paths and migrating business logic out of the firm’s PHP systems into faster implementations. This role suits an engineer who is equally strong at software design, productionization, and performance work.

Essential Job Functions

• Review AI research projects and raise the quality of their Python code design (module/class/function structure, typing, testing, packaging)
• Build out the production framework for AI solutions: a well-designed package/library API, async scalable orchestrators, coherent REST endpoints, and the data models the solution requires
• Take research and prototype AI code to scalable, reliable production, owning quality and standards before release
• Apply low-level language skills (C, C++, or Rust) to optimize performance-critical paths as needed
• Lead optimization of the firm’s PHP workloads: implement low-level alternatives where warranted, or re-architect so Python (or a low-level service) owns the business logic and PHP simply calls it
• Partner with QA to define and meet testing and acceptance goals; build monitoring and validation around AI pipelines
• Contribute to shared frameworks (private PyPI/polyrepo packaging) and DevOps (GitHub Actions, Helm-based deployment)
• Mentor analysts and associates and act as a senior reviewer for AI and engineering work

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer science, Engineering, a quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience
• 6+ years of software/data engineering experience, including production ownership and demonstrable technical leadership or mentorship
• Expert Python: idiomatic, well-structured code (modules/classes/functions), strong testing and packaging discipline, and hands-on experience taking research/prototype code to scalable production
• Production experience with Celery (or comparable async/distributed task orchestration), Flask (or similar) services, and SQLAlchemy (or comparable ORM) data modeling
• Working proficiency in at least one low-level language (C, C++, or Rust) for performance optimization
• Demonstrated ability to lead code review and own quality for a team — not just individual deliverables
• Strong communication skills; comfortable partnering with research teams and owning JIRA coordination

Other Knowledge, Skills And Abilities

• AI engineering experience: ETL and RAG pipelines, LLM API integration, document extraction
• Experience profiling and optimizing performance-critical code, and interfacing low-level code with Python (e.g., bindings/extensions)
• Familiarity with PHP
• Familiarity with Kubernetes and GitHub Actions (or comparable CI/CD)
• Familiarity with finance, private markets, or investment data domains

Salary Range: $140,000

The salary range is an estimate of pay for this position. Actual pay may vary depending on job-related factors that can include location, education, skill, and experience. The salary range does not include any benefits or other forms of possible compensation that may be available to employees.

At StepStone, we believe that our people are our most important asset and crucial to our success. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer that strives to create an environment that empowers our employees and allows them to be heard, regardless of title or tenure. Our organizational community features multiple Employment Resource Groups as well as mentorship programs to enhance the employee experience for all.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, StepStone does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by law.

Candidates must be at least 18 years old to apply.

Developing People at StepStone