Staff Software Engineer - AI-Driven Data Platform

Visa Hunt; New York (NY); On-site; CAD 165,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

AlphaSense is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the design, evolution, and reliability of a global financial data extraction and normalization platform. The system ingests filings across formats, extracts and standardizes data using AI and deterministic methods, and delivers trusted outputs at scale to downstream teams.

This role drives self-sourcing and extraction foundations, reducing human validation through AI-based validation, provenance tracking, and safeguards, while balancing

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale production systems.
• Proven experience designing data ingestion, extraction, or processing systems at scale.
• Deep expertise in distributed systems, data platforms, or AI-powered extraction or classification systems.
• Demonstrated ability to design trustworthy systems that combine probabilistic (AI) and deterministic approaches.
• Strong understanding of system reliability, observability, failure modes, and iterative hardening.
• Experience reducing operational or human overhead through better system design.
• Track record of technical leadership across teams without formal people management.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and driving clarity where none exists.
• Passion for using AI responsibly and effectively to deliver scalable, high-confidence systems.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and evolution of our large-scale data extraction and normalization platform.
• Design systems that process hundreds of thousands of records across heterogeneous sources (PDF, HTML, APIs, XLS) with high reliability.
• Define and implement strategies to minimize human-in-the-loop validation through AI-based validation, confidence scoring, provenance tracking, and deterministic safeguards.
• Establish clear system contracts for correctness, traceability, and confidence (e.g., "where did this number come from?").
• Balance AI-driven approaches with procedural and rules-based systems where they improve reliability and explainability.
• Identify and remediate architectural and operational bottlenecks impacting scale, accuracy, and developer velocity.
• Act as the technical authority to block poor designs, redesign critical systems, and introduce new platforms or tooling when necessary.
• Partner with product and downstream consumers to define quality bars, SLAs, and success metrics.
• Serve as a technical escalation point for production issues, reliability failures, and systemic risks.
• Mentor senior engineers, shape technical culture, and raise expectations for system design and execution.
• Contribute to long-term technical strategy while remaining hands-on with critical implementations.

Skills

Distributed systems

Data platforms

AI/ML-powered extraction

Platform engineering

Observability

Technical leadership

Data pipelines

Cloud-native architectures

Tools

Cloud platforms

Data pipelines

Job description

AlphaSense is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the design, evolution, and reliability of a global financial data extraction and normalization platform. The system ingests filings across formats, extracts and standardizes data using AI and deterministic methods, and delivers trusted outputs at scale to downstream teams.

This role drives self-sourcing and extraction foundations, reducing human validation through AI-based validation, provenance tracking, and safeguards, while balancing