Senior Software Engineer, Agent Frameworks

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 126,000 - 189,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

401k plan

$125/month commuting or internet expenses

$200/month for fitness and wellbeing

Up to 20 vacation days and 12 paid holidays

Job summary

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle is seeking a Senior Engineer to design foundational architecture for AI research agents. The ideal candidate has 8+ years of experience, strong Python skills, and a background in developing production services and tools.

You'll engage in the entire software development lifecycle, collaborating across engineering and research teams to deliver high-quality AI systems that help accelerate scientific discovery.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of technical experience; relevant experience may substitute for education.
• Experience building production services and developer-facing tools.
• Experience designing evaluation or benchmarking infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Design frameworks, SDKs, and execution surfaces for agents.
• Build infrastructure for sandboxed agent execution.
• Maintain evaluation and benchmarking frameworks.

Skills

Strong Python engineering skills

Experience designing SDKs

Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP)

Hands-on experience with agentic systems

Strong communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Containerization and deployment automation

Job description

Persons in these roles are expected to work from our offices in Seattle. On-site requirements vary based on position and team. If you have questions about on-site work arrangements for this role, please ask your recruiter.

Our base salary range is $126,000 - $189,000, and in addition we have generous bonus plans to provide a competitive compensation package.

Who You Are:

The Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) is hiring a Senior Engineer to build the foundational architecture behind AI research agents that explore and reason over scholarly literature. You'll design the systems that define how agents, tools, and services interact, creating SDKs, APIs, and execution frameworks that enable researchers to build, evaluate, and scale intelligent systems. You'll contribute to the agent architecture, build infrastructure for sandboxed execution and benchmarking, and create evaluation frameworks that measure component performance. You're a seasoned engineer who thrives in greenfield environments, excels at building robust developer‑facing infrastructure, and is energized by making complex distributed systems feel simple.

Who We Are:

The Agentic Applications team builds open, production‑grade AI systems that power scientific discovery. We focus on developing intelligent agents that help researchers explore literature, synthesize knowledge, and accelerate their work across real‑world scientific use cases. The team combines strong engineering practices with close collaboration across Ai2's product and research orgs to deliver tools used by millions of researchers and developers worldwide.

Your Next Challenge:

The essential functions include, but are not limited to the following:

• Design and build the frameworks, SDKs, and execution surfaces that define how agents, tools, and services interact across our research platform
• Build infrastructure for sandboxed agent execution, enabling researchers to safely run, inspect, and iterate on agent workflows at scale
• Design and maintain evaluation and benchmarking frameworks that measure the performance of individual agent components and end‑to‑end systems
• Develop the abstractions and developer‑facing tooling that let research scientists build, compose, and deploy agents without owning the underlying infrastructure
• Drive continuous improvements in reliability, observability, and cost‑efficiency across the systems agents run in and depend on
• Engage in the entire software development lifecycle, from ideation and design to implementation and testing to deployment and operational support, with a strong sense of ownership for results
• Collaborate across engineering and research teams to ensure maintainability, test coverage, and robust deployment
• Communicate effectively across engineering, product, and research teams to align priorities and drive projects to completion

What You'll Need:

• Bachelor's degree and 8+ years of technical experience; relevant experience may substitute for education
• Strong Python engineering skills, with experience building production services and developer‑facing tools
• Experience designing SDKs, APIs, or frameworks that other engineers built on top of and adopted
• Hands‑on experience building or operating agentic systems – agent orchestration, tool integration, sandboxed execution, memory management, or the surfaces agents run in and consume
• Experience designing evaluation or benchmarking infrastructure that measures system or component performance
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or similar), containerization, and deployment automation
• Strong communication skills and a sense of ownership for results

Physical Demands and Work Environment:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a team member to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions.

• Must be able to remain in a stationary position for long periods of time.
• The ability to communicate information and ideas so others will understand. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations.
• The ability to observe details at close range.
• Can work under deadlines.

Benefits:

• Team members and their families are covered by medical, dental, vision, and an employee assistance program.
• Team members are able to enroll in our health savings account plan, our healthcare reimbursement arrangement plan, and our health care and dependent care flexible spending account plans.
• Team members are able to enroll in our company's 401k plan.
• Team members will receive $125 per month to assist with commuting or internet expenses and will also receive $200 per month for fitness and wellbeing expenses.
• Team members will also receive up to ten sick days per year, up to seven personal days per year, up to 20 vacation days per year and twelve paid holidays throughout the calendar year.
• Team members will be able to receive annual bonuses and can participate in the long‑term incentive plan.

Ai2 is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. You may view the related Know Your Rights compliance poster and the Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision.

This employer participates in E‑Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I‑9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E‑Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, this employer is required to give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so you can begin to resolve the issue before the employer can take any action against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E‑Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I‑9.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities to the full extent required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you feel you need a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA, you are encouraged to contact us at [e-mail].

Note: This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the team members(s) of this position. Team members will be required to follow any other job‑related instructions and to perform any other job‑related duties requested by any person authorized to give instructions or assignments. All duties and responsibilities are essential functions and requirements and are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities. To perform this job successfully, the team member(s) will possess the skills, aptitudes, and abilities to perform each duty proficiently. Some requirements may exclude individuals who pose a direct threat or significant risk to the health or safety of themselves or others. The requirements listed in this document are the minimum levels of knowledge, skills, or abilities. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an at‑will relationship.