Senior Software Engineer – AI Applications

Bezos Academy; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 157,000 - 298,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

15 paid vacation days

medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) with employer contribution

Job summary

Bezos Academy is seeking a Senior AI Applications Engineer to build AI-powered applications that enhance early education. You will work closely with a product development team to deliver tools for teachers that drive meaningful results.

The ideal candidate has extensive experience in full-stack development, particularly with AI applications. Offering a salary range of $157,000–$298,000 along with comprehensive benefits including vacation days and insurance plans.

Qualifications

• Eight or more years of experience developing and deploying full-stack applications.
• Two or more years working on AI-powered applications in production environments.
• Experience integrating pre-trained foundation models into production applications.

Responsibilities

• Build AI-powered software applications that support teachers.
• Oversee the full software development lifecycle.
• Collaborate with product-development teams to launch applications.

Skills

Proficiency in Python

TypeScript knowledge

SQL knowledge

AI safety practices

Full-stack application development

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

Tools

AWS services (e.g., Bedrock, Lambda)

Job description

At Bezos Academy, we believe all children deserve the great start that excellent early education provides, including in under‑resourced communities. Our mission is to nurture the potential in every child to become a creative leader, original thinker, and lifelong learner by inventing the solutions needed to scale early childhood education.

About the Role

As a Senior AI Applications Engineer, you will build AI‑powered software applications that support teachers’ abilities to deliver measurable results in early childhood education. You will work with a small product development team to develop intelligent systems for teachers, staff, and families, creating tools that delight users and enable our national school network to nurture young children’s originality and foster self‑agency.

Responsibilities

• Combine machine‑learning models, high‑quality data, and human‑centered workflows into production‑ready tools.
• Oversee the full software‑development lifecycle, from research and prototyping to deployment, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Collaborate with product‑development teams to launch AI‑powered applications.
• Apply practical AI workflows and sound software‑engineering principles to build high‑impact AI products.
• Conduct evaluations, inference validation, and implement AI guardrails to strengthen security, performance, and ethics.
• Iterate quickly, navigate ambiguity, and shape solutions that earn customer love.

Location

• Washington, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, or Texas, within two hours’ drive to multiple Bezos Academy preschools (see our website for school locations); Seattle, WA preferred.
• Relocation support is available for those willing to relocate to Seattle, WA.

Compensation And Benefits

• This is a full‑time, benefits‑eligible, salaried position.
• The full salary range for this position across applicable United States geographies is $157,000 – $298,000 per year. The upper portion of the salary range is typically reserved for employees who have been in the role for multiple years and have demonstrated strong performance over time. Starting salary will vary by location, qualifications, and prior experience.
• Benefits include 15 paid days of vacation, 4 paid personal time off, 9 paid sick (care) days, 9 paid holidays, 5 paid days off for an organization‑wide winter break, and additional time off if required by applicable law. Medical, dental, and vision insurance; life insurance; disability insurance; a 401(k) plan with a 4% employer contribution match; paid parental leave; an employer‑matched flexible spending account for dependent care; and more.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
• Eight or more years of experience developing and deploying full‑stack applications, including two or more years working on AI‑powered applications in production environments.
• Proficiency in Python for backend development and integrating AI capabilities.
• Working knowledge of TypeScript and SQL for full‑stack development and data handling.
• Experience integrating pre‑trained foundation models, including large language models (LLMs) and multi‑modal models, into production applications.
• Familiarity with model evaluation techniques, such as prompt testing, output validation, and performance monitoring.
• Experience with AWS services, especially those relevant to AI applications (e.g., Bedrock, Lambda, EC2, S3, RDS, DynamoDB).
• Understanding of AI safety practices, including inference validation, implementing guardrails, and handling personally identifiable information (PII) and sensitive data responsibly.
• Ability to speak, read, and write English fluently.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with LangChain or similar frameworks for orchestrating LLM workflows and agentic behavior (e.g., tool use, planning, memory).
• Familiarity with AWS AgentCore.
• Exposure to vector databases and embedding techniques, especially in retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) workflows.
• Experience implementing AWS Bedrock Guardrails or similar safety mechanisms.
• Understanding of LLM evaluation strategies, including prompt engineering and human feedback loops.
• Experience with DevOps practices, including CI/CD pipelines, test automation, and infrastructure‑as‑code tools (e.g., AWS CDK).

Bezos Academy participates in E‑Verify and will provide the federal government with employee Form I‑9 Information to confirm authorization to work in the U.S. Bezos Academy only uses E‑Verify once a candidate has accepted a job offer and completed the Form I‑9. If E‑Verify cannot confirm that an employee is authorized to work, Bezos Academy will give the employee written instructions and an opportunity to contact the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so the employee can begin to resolve the issue before any adverse employment action is taken. For more information about your right to work, please see the Notice of Right to Work.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you are in need of an accommodation to participate in the application process, please reach out to [e-mail]. We will work with you to ensure you have a fair opportunity to apply for our open positions.