Staff Software Engineer

OpenMined; Washington (District of Columbia); Remote; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

US Healthcare

Open Source Contribution

Fully Remote Work

Flexible Work Hours

Flexible PTO

Equity

Competitive Compensation

Job summary

OpenMined seeks a Senior/Staff Software Engineer to lead the Network Sourced AI squad, architecting end-to-end systems and guiding production-grade delivery. You will write production code, shape architecture, and set engineering standards with a focus on scalability and attribution.

You will mentor engineers, drive roadmaps with product, and ensure high-velocity delivery across the NSAI stack in a fully remote environment. An ideal candidate thrives on distributed systems and open-source impact.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong Python proficiency with FastAPI and async patterns.
• Proficiency in Vue 3/TypeScript or Rust/Tauri for cross‑platform apps.
• Networking/P2P experience is beneficial.

Responsibilities

• Own the NSAI squad architecture end-to-end across stack to deliver reliable capabilities and UX.
• Drive production readiness with deployment monitoring, error handling, and runbooks.
• Mentor the team in engineering best practices, code quality, and production delivery.
• Collaborate on core tech strategy and define standard interfaces to reduce coupling.
• Partner with product to create feasible, scalable roadmaps and deliver quarterly goals.
• Lead team output, balance workload, and manage resources for high impact.
• Establish tooling and methodologies to maintain high velocity and knowledge transfer.
• Create technical documentation and processes to support rapid delivery.
• Manage 2–4 engineers with 1:1s, feedback, growth plans, and performance reviews.

Skills

Python

FastAPI

TypeScript

Vue 3

Rust

Networking

Distributed systems

Tools

Docker

Job description

About The Role

We're looking for a Senior / Staff Software Engineer to join OpenMined, a nonprofit on a mission to build the public network for the world's non-public data — unlocking 1,000,000x more information across every scientific field and industry, and ensuring it stays open, equitable, and accessible to all.

Y'ou’ll lead our Network Sourced AI squad — the team building two core products that make this vision real. Today, the entire AI stack is built on copying content into model weights and hoping the lawsuits don't land. We think there's a better architecture: data stays at the source, AI queries it live, and every answer carries attribution back to who made it possible. Syft Space is the local node any data owner(a newsroom, a publisher, a research lab, an individual) runs to publish their content under their own terms and pricing. Syft Hub is the network layer that lets AI labs, agents, and app developers find those nodes and query across them in real time.

This is a team lead + hands‑on technical leadership role. Y'ou write code. Y'ou make architecture decisions. Y'ou set engineering standards by example. Y'ou're the most experienced engineer on the squad, the person others look to for production-quality judgment, and the voice that connects this team's decisions with the organization's broader platform strategy.

The squad is talented and mission-driven and looking to strengthen its ability to continuously ship production software. Y'ou bring this production muscle: the instinct for what scales, the judgment about what to build and what to kill, and the craft to raise the team's standard through code review, pairing, and architectural guidance rather than mandates.

If y'ou're motivated by building distributed systems that matter, mentoring brilliant people who are just getting started, and making hard technical calls in a fast-moving nonprofit that's trying to change how the world shares data — we'd love to hear from you.

Responsibilities

• Own the NSAI squad technical architecture end to end — align design, engineering, and deployment across stack to deliver reliable technical capabilities and user experience from current implementation through product roadmap evolution.
• Drive production readiness through deployment monitoring, error handling, graceful degradation, and operational runbooks.
• Be a force multiplier by establishing, demonstrating, and mentoring the team to establish norms around engineering best practices (including system design for modularity, security, reliability, & scalability), code quality, and delivery to production.
• Collaborate on core technology stack strategy through architectural review and identification of NSAI components that should become shared organizational primitives and defining standard interfaces that prevent tight coupling.
• Partner with product lead to develop and execute on realistic roadmaps that balance what is desired with what is feasible, scalable, and architecturally sounds.
• Own the delivery of engineering's quarterly goals, ensuring consistent, high-impact delivery while effectively managing resources.
• Own team output, delivery, and success (productivity, timeliness, morale) through appropriately matching team members and work to properly balance interest, learning opportunities, capacity, and capability.
• Champion high-quality software delivery through the establishment of robust tools, processes, & methodologies, and by providing hands‑on technical leadership via individual development contributions and code reviews.
• Create technical documentation and processes that support high velocity and knowledge transfer.
• Manage a team of 2‑4 engineers as a people leader, performing 1:1s, providing technical and professional feedback, creating professional development plans, and performing performance reviews.

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with a track record of personally building, shipping, and operating production systems at meaningful scale
• Strong Python proficiency — FastAPI, async patterns, Docker orchestration
• Vue 3 / TypeScript, Rust / Tauri, or cross‑platform desktop app experience extremely beneficial
• Networking/P2P application experience beneficial

Distributed systems and API design experience including design & evolution of interfaces consumed by multiple independent teams

Practical RAG and information retrieval experience with vector databases, retrieval pipelines, embedding strategies, and aggregation

Demonstration of technical leadership through the introduction of engineering quality practices to one or more teams

Comfort with ambiguity and resource constraints

Async‑fluent with strong written communication and capacity to build high‑trust working relationships across 6hr+ time zone spread

Cross‑functional collaboration & communication to facilitate and improve understanding/context sharing between engineers and non‑engineering/non‑technical stakeholders

Located within ET +/- 1 to enable rapid team‑oriented communication, learning, and feedback cycles as well as facilitate engagement with remainder of OpenMined engineering team, globally.

Benefits

• US Healthcare Benefits: We offer healthcare benefits for employees located in the United States
• Mission‑Driven Work: Be part of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, focused on social impact rather than profit, offering the chance to make a meaningful difference in the world.
• Open Source Contribution: Make a real impact by contributing to an Open Source project that benefits a broad community.
• Collaborative Global Team: Join a dynamic, international team that values collaboration and diversity.
• Flexible Work Hours: Enjoy the autonomy to structure your work hours around what best fits your life and productivity.
• Fully Remote Work: Work from anywhere in the world—no office or commute required.
• Results‑Driven Culture: Thrive in an environment that values efficiency and results over bureaucracy.
• Flexible Paid Time Off: Take the time you need with flexible vacation days, alongside recognition of local national holidays.
• Competitive Compensation: Receive competitive pay, with equity in salary across different regions.