Staff Software Engineer (Python/ JavaScript/ AWS/ LLMS)

D24 Search is a VC backed startup that builds AI-enabled data infrastructure for secure data access and intelligence sharing, specifically for U.S. intelligence and defense communities. The Staff Software Engineer will make technical direction and architectural decisions, combining software development with ML Ops practices to enhance the platform's capabilities.

Responsibilities:

• Making technical direction and architectural decisions for the platform
• Building, shipping, and supporting mission-critical services across the full data stack
• Leveraging LLMs and AI tooling as a core part of design, build, ship, and debug processes

Requirements:

• 12–20+ years of experience with meaningful time at Staff level or above
• Proficiency with AWS (S3, Lambda, RDS), securing large-scale production data, and ML development in Python/JS
• Track record owning architecture for mission-critical, large-scale production systems
• You think in systems and trade-offs, communicate clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders, and thrive in ambiguity with high ownership
• Experience shaping engineering culture within government (DoD, Intel) organizations
• You are comfortable with ambiguity and high ownership
• You have experience handling and securing large-scale production data
• You are excited by how AI enables and demands better solutions to time-old problems like data sharing
• You use AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot) daily and instinctively
• Familiarity with MCP or similar LLM integration frameworks
• You have a clear-eyed view of AI limitations, you know when to trust AI-generated output and when to verify