Senior Software Engineer
Morningstar · Chicago, IL · 1 mo ago
HybridEngineering$153k/yrFull-time
Job Duties
- Architecting, optimizing and developing Python-based applications and APIs (FastAPI, Flask, RESTful services), including asynchronous programming and event-based architectures using cloud-native services (20%)
- Architecting, optimizing relational and vector databases (PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, query optimization, indexes, replicas, migrations, Weaviate, Pinecone) and working with dataframes for data processing and analysis (SQL-based agents) (20%)
- Driving AI security, compliance, and governance strategies (hallucination mitigation, ethical AI practices, AI guardrails) (10%)
- Architecting, researching and reviewing AI-driven enterprise platforms (retrieval-augmented generation, LLM fine-tuning, AI governance, model optimization) (20%)
- Defining and reviewing technical documentation, setting architectural guidelines, enforcing best coding practices, conducting design reviews, and ensuring maintainability and scalability of codebases (10%)
- Collaborating with cross-functional teams to align AI strategies with business needs and technical requirements (20%)
Job Requirements
- This position requires a bachelor's degree in computer science, or a related field, or foreign equivalent and 5 years of relevant experience as a Software Engineer, Application Development Associate, or in a related position.
- In alternative, we accept a Master's degree in Computer Science, or a related field, or foreign equivalent and 3 years of relevant experience as a Software Engineer, Application Development Associate, or in a related position.
- This position also requires database engineering management through RDBMS (SQL Server, PostgreSQL) including design, normalization, optimization, sharding, ACID transactions, and migrations.
- Python Development: Production applications, APIs (calling and invoking, Rest API’s) for data preprocessing. Object-oriented programming in Python/Java, including OOP design patterns and UML architecture.
- Data processing and visualization by using QlikView and Python (Pandas, Plotly, Matplotlib).
- Agile development practices with emphasis on customer-centric delivery.
- Cloud and infrastructure management by using various cloud services such as AWS S3, Aurora, RDS, API Gateway, and AWS Lambda.
- Machine learning and statistical methods, including natural language processing (NLP) and embeddings.
- Version control and CI/CD (Git, application deployment and monitoring tools).
- Authoring technical documentation for developers, technical, and non-technical users.
- Vector Databases & Retrieval: Weaviate, Pinecone, GraphQL-based querying, AI-powered retrieval.
- Scalability & Performance: Queuebased request handling (SQS, Celery), event-driven architectures, caching using in-memory data structures such as Redis.
- AI Adoption: Driving AI tool adoption within enterprises. Multiprovider integration (OpenAI, Anthropic, MistralAI, etc.), Retrieval augmented generation, function calling, structured outputs, conversational memory.
- Prompt Engineering: Chain-of-thought prompting, prompt caching, zero-shot prompting.
- Agentic Frameworks: LangGraph or AutoGen for building agentic orchestrations.
- Feature Flagging tools such as Split or CloudBees.
- Financial AI Applications: Investment-related AI, financial data analysis.
- Contributions to Python open-source projects or packages.
- LLM Understanding & Safety: Transformers, attention mechanisms, fine-tuning, hallucination mitigation, AI safety guardrails.
Pay
Base Salary Compensation: $153,317.00
Schedule
Morningstar's hybrid work environment gives you the opportunity to collaborate in-person each week as we've found that we're at our best when we're purposely together on a regular basis. In most of our locations, our hybrid work model is four days in-office each week.
Benefits
Here are some examples of the offerings we provide:
- Financial Health: 100% 401k match up to 6% of salary
- Stock Ownership Potential
- Company provided life insurance - 1x salary + commission
- Physical Health: Comprehensive health benefits (medical/dental/vision) including potential premium discounts and company-provided HSA contributions (up to $500-$2,000 annually for specific plans and coverages)
- Additional medical Wellness Incentives - up to $300-$600 annually
- Company-provided long- and short-term disability insurance
- Emotional Health: Trust-Based Time Off, 6-week Paid Sabbatical Program, 6-Week Paid Family Caregiving Leave, Competitive 8-24 Week Paid Parental Leave, Adoption Assistance
- Leverage Coaching & Formal Mentorship Opportunities
- Annual Flex Stipend - $1000 annually to cover personal education & well-being expenses
- Tuition Reimbursement
- Dollars for Doers volunteer program
- Paid volunteering days
- 15+ Employee Resource & Affinity Groups
EEO Statement
Morningstar is an equal opportunity employer.