{"id":3215684,"url":"https://alion.io/job/athena-infonomics-software-engineer-senior-software-engineer","title":"Software Engineer / Senior Software Engineer","company":{"id":3776188,"name":"Athena Infonomics","domain":"athenainfonomics.in","url":"https://alion.io/company/athenainfonomics","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Keka","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Chennai, India"],"countries":["IN"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":15500,"max_usd":36000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":168},"experience_years_min":3,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Angular","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Django","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"Embeddings","optional":false},{"name":"FastAPI","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Nginx","optional":false},{"name":"NLP","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Prompt Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"React.js","optional":false},{"name":"Redis","optional":false},{"name":"Rest API","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false},{"name":"GDPR","optional":true},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"PostGIS","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-06-19T06:13:58Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-06-19","last_verified_at":"2026-10-26T13:23:56Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":129,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":128},"description":"Position: Software Engineer / Senior Software Engineer (3-7 years)\nLocation: Chennai, India (Hybrid) or Remote\nType: Full-time\nExperience: 3-7 years\nAbout Athena Infonomics\nAthena Infonomics is a global impact solutions group that applies social science research, data analytics, and technology to advance international development. For over 15 years, we’ve partnered with major global institutions including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, FCDO, US State Department, and leading INGOs to build digital tools, platforms, and data systems that drive evidence-based decision-making. We operate across India, the US, the UK, Kenya, and program hubs spanning Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.\nWe’re expanding our technology practice - building reusable platforms, integrating AI into our solution delivery, and growing the engineering team that makes it all happen.\nThe Role\nYou are an engineer with 3-7 years of experience who brings not just technical depth but genuine ownership, vision, and the drive to shape how things are built. You will work closely with the Engineering Manager / Tech Lead on active client engagements - designing and delivering modules end-to-end, integrating AI-powered capabilities, and contributing to technical decisions that matter.\nThis is not a ticket-and-close role. You are expected to independently own full modules from architecture to deployment, proactively identify problems before they escalate, bring AI fluency to every engagement, and show the kind of leadership character that grows into a senior or tech lead position. You will be held to a high bar - not someday, but from day one.\nWhat You Will Own\nFeature Development & End-to-End Delivery\nOwn modules and feature sets independently - from reading the requirement to architecting the solution, writing production code, handling QA, and deploying to a live environment.\nBuild and maintain backend services, frontend interfaces, and integrations that are clean, tested, and ready to hand over to a client.\nTranslate technical specifications - and sometimes ambiguous client inputs - into clear implementation plans before writing a single line of code.\nMeet sprint commitments without being chased. Flag blockers early, propose solutions, and close the loop.\nContribute to identifying reusable components and patterns across engagements to reduce delivery time.\nAI Integration & Applied Intelligence\nBring working knowledge of LLM integration patterns - RAG, embeddings, prompt engineering, API orchestration - into real client solutions.\nImplement and iterate on AI-powered features: automated reporting, NLP workflows, intelligent data extraction, and decision-support tools.\nEvaluate AI output quality, design feedback loops, and make pragmatic decisions about build-vs-API for AI capabilities.\nStay current on the AI/ML landscape. Come in with opinions. Push the team’s thinking on what’s possible.\nCode Quality & Engineering Standards\nWrite code you’d be proud to have reviewed - with tests, clear abstractions, sensible modularity, and production readiness.\nReview PRs critically and constructively. Set the quality bar, not just meet it.\nImprove team standards: CI/CD pipelines, deployment processes, testing coverage, documentation. Identify gaps and close them.\nDebug cross-stack issues (API, frontend, database, background workers, caching) and document what you find.\nTechnical Vision & Problem Solving\nThink in systems. When picking up a new feature, ask: how does this fit the architecture? What breaks if this scales? What’s the right abstraction?\nMake build-vs-buy and architecture decisions at the module level. Document them. Stand behind them.\nContribute meaningfully to technical design discussions - proposals, spec reviews, architecture calls. Your voice should add value, not just volume.\nIdentify technical debt and surface it proactively, with a proposed fix - not just a complaint.\nCollaboration, Communication & Client Exposure\nWork closely with the Tech Lead on shared codebases and shared standards - as a contributor, not a passenger.\nParticipate in client-facing sessions: sprint demos, UAT sessions, technical walkthroughs. Communicate clearly with non-technical stakeholders when needed.\nSurface ambiguities in requirements before they become build problems. Ask the right questions early.\nContribute to internal documentation - technical specs, runbooks, onboarding guides - with the discipline of someone who knows others will depend on it.\nLeadership Character & Growth\nOwnership mindset: you see a problem, you fix it or get it fixed. You don’t wait to be told. You don’t point at someone else.\nDependability: your team should be able to assign you a module and trust it will be delivered - on time, to spec, production-quality.\nCommitment: you follow through. If something isn’t working, you say so early - you don’t go quiet and miss the milestone.\nVision: you think beyond the ticket. You have opinions about what the product or platform should become and you’re not shy about sharing them.\nLow ego: you’ll pair-program with a more junior colleague in the morning and present a technical approach to a client in the afternoon. The work matters more than the title.\nWhat We’re Looking For\nMust Have\nExperience & Track Record\n3-7 years of professional software engineering experience, with a clear track record of shipping.\nDelivered features or modules end-to-end in a professional setting - product company, agency, or consulting environment.\nHands-on experience with a modern web stack: Backend: Python (Django or FastAPI) with PostgreSQL, Redis, task queues\nFrontend: React or Angular with TypeScript, component-based architecture\nInfrastructure: AWS or Azure, Docker, CI/CD pipelines, Nginx or reverse proxies\n\nComfortable working on existing codebases - reading, extending, improving code you didn’t write.\nExperience managing your own delivery: scoping, estimation, flagging risk, meeting commitments.\nEngineering Depth\nStrong API design sense - RESTful services, authentication, data exchange, third-party integrations.\nDatabase proficiency: schema design, query optimisation, data modelling for analytics workloads.\nUnderstands performance end-to-end: frontend load times, API latency, database query plans, caching strategies.\nWrites tests - unit and integration. Treats testing as part of delivery, not an afterthought.\nCan trace a bug across a full stack and fix it without being walked through every step.\nAI/ML Fluency (Applied, Not Research)\nWorking knowledge of LLM integration patterns: RAG, embeddings, prompt engineering, API orchestration.\nHas built or integrated AI-powered features into a real product or client solution - not just experimented in a notebook.\nCan evaluate AI output quality, design feedback loops, and make pragmatic build-vs-API decisions.\nKeeps up with the AI/ML landscape. Knows what’s possible, what’s hype, and how to apply it practically.\nLeadership Character\nOwnership mindset: you take responsibility for your modules end-to-end - from understanding the requirement to verifying it works in production.\nDependable: your word is your commitment. You deliver, or you raise the flag early enough that the team can adapt.\nVisionary: you care about what’s being built and why. You have opinions on architecture, product direction, and technical quality - and you express them constructively.\nStrong communicator: you write clearly, give direct status updates, and surface issues without being asked.\nBias for action: you’d rather ship a well-considered 80% solution and iterate than over-engineer and miss the deadline.\nNice to Have\nExperience in the international development, MERL, or social impact sector.\nExperience building data dashboards, analytics tools, or MERL systems.\nFamiliarity with data sovereignty requirements (GDPR, in-country hosting mandates).\nExperience with geospatial data (PostGIS, Leaflet, mapping libraries).\nWhy Join Athena Infonomics\nMission that matters. Your code powers tools used by governments, donors, and development organisations tackling real problems - sanitation, health, education, climate - across multiple continents.\nReal ownership, from day one. You’ll be given modules to own, not tickets to close. Your decisions affect real clients. Your delivery shapes the product.\nAI at the frontier. We’re integrating AI into how development data is collected, analysed, and reported. You’ll define this capability alongside senior engineers, not inherit it.\nStrong mentorship and high standards. You’ll work directly with experienced engineering leads who pair with you on hard problems, invest in your growth, and hold you to a high bar.\nVariety and depth. No two engagements are the same. You’ll build dashboards, analytics platforms, data pipelines, and AI-powered workflows across a global client base.\nGlobal exposure. Work with clients and teams across India, the US, East Africa, and South Asia.\nInterview Process\nIntro call - Motivation, background, and culture fit\nTechnical screen - System thinking, past projects, architecture sense, and AI/ML knowledge\nHands-on exercise - Write, debug, and walk through code; demonstrate end-to-end thinking and quality standards\nLeadership & delivery round - Ownership mindset, delivery under ambiguity, communication clarity\nFinal round - Alignment, expectations, and compensation discussion\nAthena Infonomics is an Equal Opportunities Employer\nAthena Infonomics is an equal opportunity employer with a commitment to diversity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran status, or disability status.\nAI Proficiency and Responsible Use\nProficiency in the responsible and sophisticated use of AI is a mandatory requirement for all roles, across all levels and functions at Athena Infonomics","description_format":"text","description_chars":9925,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":3,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"India","iso":"IN","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["AI Consulting & Integration","Think Tanks & Policy Research"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-24T22:14:02Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":8,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.291,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":128,"expected_fill_days":28,"reasons":["conf:1","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-26T05:57:25Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/athena-infonomics-software-engineer-senior-software-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/athena-infonomics-software-engineer-senior-software-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-26T16:13:28Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":21563,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-27T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":3776188},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3776188"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fathena-infonomics-software-engineer-senior-software-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fathena-infonomics-software-engineer-senior-software-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fathena-infonomics-software-engineer-senior-software-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/athena-infonomics-software-engineer-senior-software-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fathena-infonomics-software-engineer-senior-software-engineer"}]}