Senior Software Engineer, AI for Data Platforms

Astronomer; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 210,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Astronomer is seeking a Software Engineer to shape the foundation of our context layer—enabling intelligent search, retrieval, and AI-powered data tools for practitioners. You’ll work across the stack with a small, skilled team to turn research ideas into production features that scale.

The role is hybrid with at least 3 days per week in our New York City office. You’ll collaborate with R&D and product teams, influence architecture, and contribute to open-source efforts and community initiatives.

Qualifications

• 5-8 years of software engineering experience with Python or Go.
• Empathy for users, and a deep interest in improving workflows for data professionals.
• Familiarity with early-stage product development; comfortable with ambiguity in a fast-changing field.
• Experience with LLMs, vector databases, embeddings, or other applied AI areas.
• A creative, experimental mindset: enjoy exploring uncharted areas, validating hypotheses, and learning through iteration.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills—you can explain complex systems clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• A collaborative approach and comfort working in an evolving, research-driven environment where ideas move quickly.

Responsibilities

• Shape the future of AI for data engineering—build intelligent systems that understand, reason about, and optimize data flow.
• Design and engineer the brain of Astronomer’s context layer, crafting components for data modeling, semantic search, retrieval, and code generation.
• Push the boundaries of applied AI—experiment with LLMs, embeddings, and retrieval techniques to create developer tools that deliver insights.
• Turn research into reality—work with R&D and product teams to bring early AI concepts to life in the product.
• Solve high-impact information retrieval and search challenges at a global scale, leveraging Astronomer’s data pipelines.
• Influence the technical vision and architecture for next-gen AI-driven data products.
• Represent Astronomer in the community through open-source contributions, talks, and publications.

Skills

Python

Go

LLMs

Vector databases

Embeddings

Empathy for users

Collaboration

Tools

LLMs

Vector databases

Embeddings

Job description

Astronomer is seeking a Software Engineer to shape the foundation of our context layer—enabling intelligent search, retrieval, and AI-powered data tools for practitioners. You’ll work across the stack with a small, skilled team to turn research ideas into production features that scale.

The role is hybrid with at least 3 days per week in our New York City office. You’ll collaborate with R&D and product teams, influence architecture, and contribute to open-source efforts and community initiatives.