Software Engineer, Sr.

About The Company

Lightning AI is a pioneering technology company founded in 2019, renowned for developing PyTorch Lightning, an end-to-end platform that streamlines the development, training, and deployment of artificial intelligence systems. Our platform is designed to facilitate a seamless transition from research concepts to production environments, minimizing friction and accelerating innovation. Through our strategic merger with Voltage Park, a neocloud and AI Factory, Lightning AI now combines developer-first software solutions with cost-effective, large-scale computational resources. This integration empowers teams to experiment, train, and deploy AI models efficiently, with built-in security, observability, and control features. Serving solo researchers, startups, and large enterprises globally, Lightning AI maintains offices in New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and London. Our investors include Coatue, Index Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, and Firstminute, reflecting strong confidence in our vision and growth trajectory.

About The Role

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Software Engineer to join our Agents team at Lightning AI. In this role, you will be instrumental in designing and building the backend systems that underpin our AI agent platform. Your focus will be on creating robust orchestration frameworks, managing workflows, executing tools, and handling long-term state and memory in distributed environments. Your work will enable developers to build sophisticated, production-ready AI applications with confidence and ease. Collaborating closely with cross-functional teams—including Core Platform, Training & Experimentation, Sandboxes, and Optimized Compute—you will contribute to delivering scalable, reliable, and developer-friendly platform capabilities. This position offers an exciting opportunity to influence the future of AI infrastructure, working in a fast-paced, innovative environment that values ownership, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in building scalable backend systems using languages such as Go, Python, or Rust.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, asynchronous processing, and cloud-native architectures.
• Proven experience designing and operating production services at scale.
• Hands-on experience with backend platforms, developer tools, or infrastructure products.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, or Azure, and container technologies including Docker and Kubernetes.
• Ability to take ownership of large technical initiatives from architecture through deployment.
• Commitment to software quality, automated testing, observability, and continuous delivery practices.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to collaborate effectively across multidisciplinary teams.
• Ability to thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments while balancing technical excellence with product impact.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop backend services that enable AI agent orchestration and execution.
• Create scalable APIs and platform capabilities for tool integration, workflow management, and state handling.
• Build reliable infrastructure to support long-running, distributed AI workflows.
• Collaborate with product, research, and platform engineering teams to bring new agent features into production.
• Enhance platform reliability, observability, and performance as customer workloads grow.
• Evaluate and optimize technical architecture, engineering processes, and developer tooling.
• Maintain high standards for software quality through rigorous testing, automation, and continuous delivery.
• Mentor junior engineers on system design, distributed systems, and backend best practices.

Benefits

• Comprehensive health coverage including medical, dental, and vision plans.
• Meaningful equity through RSUs, aligning employees' success with company growth.
• Retirement savings options such as 401(k) matching (U.S.) and pension contributions.