# Senior Software Engineer, Public Sector

**Company:** [Scale AI](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/scale-ai)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA, St. Louis, MO, New York, NY, Washington, DC
**Role:** Fullstack Engineering
**Salary:** $135k – $233k/yr
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Full Stack Development, Backend Systems, Cloud-Native Technologies, AWS, Azure, GCP, Docker, Kubernetes, Data Pipelines, ETL, LLMs, RAG, Agent Orchestration, Python, JavaScript
**Posted:** 2026-07-14

> Software Engineer building core backend systems, data pipelines, and agentic AI capabilities (guardrails, orchestration, RAG) for federal/public sector customers using cloud-native infrastructure. Requires full-stack proficiency, cloud/data engineering experience, and strong collaboration skills.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Build core product building blocks for forward-deployed teams to develop agentic capabilities across multiple domains.
- Create systems to ingest and process federal datasets supporting real-time decision-making in contested environments.
- Develop novel agentic enabling capabilities including multi-layered guardrails around agents, optimizing data retrieval for agents, orchestrating fleets of asynchronous agents, automatically alerting users to deviations in data, and illustrating how an agent reached a decision.
- Own the development of a vertical feature or horizontal capability, including defining requirements with stakeholders and implementation until accepted.
- Design and implement scalable backend systems for Federal customers using cloud-native AI infrastructure.
- Build features for agentic systems including multi-layered guardrails and data retrieval optimization.
- Develop data pipelines and machine learning infrastructure to make data sources accessible by agents.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to execute backend solutions for secure environments.
- Participate in customer engagements to understand requirements and deliver technical solutions.
- Contribute to the platform roadmap and product strategy for the Federal business.

## Requirements
- Proficiency in full stack development including front-end, back-end, and infrastructure.
- Experience with modern web development frameworks, programming languages, and databases.
- Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and developing/deploying applications in cloud-native environments.
- Knowledge of ETL processes and experience building data pipelines to integrate and process diverse data sources.
- Understanding of data modeling, data warehousing, and data governance principles.
- Familiarity with integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) and building agentic workflows.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills to collaborate with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and customers.
- Ability to clearly articulate technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
- Willingness to embrace new technologies, learn new skills, and adapt to evolving project requirements.

## Nice-to-Haves
- Experience with containerization (Docker) and container orchestration (Kubernetes).
- Understanding of prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agent orchestration.
- Ability to think critically, identify root causes, and propose innovative approaches.
- Stay up-to-date with emerging trends in software engineering.

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