{"id":1289086,"url":"https://alion.io/job/makeswift-lead-software-engineer-ai","title":"Lead Software Engineer - AI","company":{"id":1768664,"name":"Makeswift","domain":"makeswift.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/makeswift","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Austin, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":163040,"max":244560,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":244560},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Anthropic","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Hugging Face","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Model Context Protocol","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Structured Outputs","optional":false},{"name":"Angular","optional":true},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"React.js","optional":true},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-16T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-16","last_verified_at":"2026-10-01T05:19:18Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":15,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":15},"description":"Welcome to the Agentic Commerce Era\nAt Commerce, our mission is to empower businesses to innovate, grow, and thrive with our open, AI-driven commerce ecosystem. As the parent company of BigCommerce, Feedonomics, and Makeswift, we connect the tools and systems that power growth, enabling businesses to unlock the full potential of their data, deliver seamless and personalized experiences across every channel, and adapt swiftly to an ever-changing market. We believe in harnessing AI responsibly to unlock new possibilities, and we’re looking for individuals who use it intentionally to solve problems, accelerate outcomes, and expand what’s possible in their role. Our purpose is to help businesses confidently solve complex commerce challenges so they can build smarter, adapt faster, and grow on their own terms. If you want to be part of a team of bold builders, sharp thinkers, and technical trailblazers who shape the future of commerce, this is the place for you.\nAs a Commerce brand, Feedonomics is a leading product feed management platform that helps brands, retailers, and agencies list and optimize products across top ecommerce channels worldwide. Feedonomics manages everything from onboarding to ongoing feed optimization, enabling our clients to scale faster with less effort. Feedonomics has earned a strong reputation for a full-service model and powerful technology-all rooted in a commitment to excellence.\nWe are seeking a highly accountable, hands-on AI Lead Engineer to define and lead the architectural direction of our AI services, establishing the standards and patterns that guide implementation. As a key member of the AI technical staff, you will shape the architecture, design standards, and implementation approach for production-grade AI systems that power critical business capabilities.\nYou will partner closely with Product and Engineering leadership to translate business objectives into scalable, well-architected AI solutions. This role combines deep hands-on development with architectural leadership: setting technical patterns, guiding major initiatives from design through delivery, and ensuring our AI services are reliable, performant, and cost-aware in production.\nWhat You'll Do:\nDefine and evolve the architectural direction for AI services and initiatives\n\nLead high-level and low-level design for major AI programs\n\nEstablish architectural patterns and technical guidelines that other engineers follow\n\nBuild and evolve scalable, API-driven AI services in Go\n\nDevelop LLM-based solutions, including classification, extraction, structured generation, and RAG workflows\n\nDrive rapid experimentation and prototyping (often in Python), ensuring clear paths to production-ready implementations\n\nDefine and enforce standards for evaluation, cost-awareness, and operational reliability across AI systems\n\nMentor Senior AI Engineers through design reviews and technical guidance\n\nCollaborate with Staff Engineers when broader architectural alignment is required\n\nHow You’ll Work\nWork directly with Product Managers and stakeholders to clarify goals and define measurable success criteria\n\nBalance hands-on engineering with architectural oversight\n\nEnsure architectural consistency and adherence to established design standards\n\nRaise the technical bar through thoughtful reviews and shared engineering standards\n\nWho You Are:\n7+ years of professional software engineering experience\n\nStrong proficiency in Go (GoLang) and experience building production-grade, API-driven services\n\nProficiency in Python for experimentation, prototyping, and scripting\n\n3+ years of experience building and deploying AI/ML systems in production environments\n\nStrong experience with modern LLM ecosystems (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face)\n\nDeep understanding of LLM-based solution patterns, including Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), structured outputs, schema-driven generation, and agents/orchestration workflows\n\nFamiliarity with MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers and orchestration approaches\n\nExperience evaluating LLM performance in production contexts, including prompt design, quality measurement, and model comparison\n\nExperience designing and operating scalable API services at scale\n\nStrong experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure)\n\nExperience with vector databases and inference systems\n\nStrong SQL skills and familiarity with modern data storage technologies\n\nNice to Have\nExperience working with large taxonomies or structured classification systems\n\nExperience in e-commerce, product catalogs, or sales channel data models\n\nFamiliarity with frontend frameworks (React, Angular)\n\nWhat Success Looks Like\nAI initiatives ship with strong architectural integrity and measurable business impact\n\nAI services are scalable, reliable, and cost-aware in production\n\nClear architectural direction is reflected in design decisions and implementation standards\n\nSenior Engineers grow in capability through mentorship and architectural guidance\n\nCross-functional collaboration results in well-aligned, well-executed AI solutions\n\n(Pay Transparency Range: $163,040 - $244,560)\nCompensation Transparency\nThe national base salary range for this role is posted above in this job post.\nFinal compensation will be determined based on factors such as relevant experience, skills, qualifications and geographic location. We also consider internal equity to help ensure fair and consistent pay practices across our teams.\nWhere applicable, this role may also be eligible for variable compensation (such as bonus or commission), equity, and benefits in accordance with local policies. Details will be shared during the hiring process. We are committed to equitable and transparent pay practices that align to market data, internal equity, and individual contribution.\nInclusion and Belonging\nAt Commerce, we believe that celebrating the unique histories, perspectives and abilities of every employee makes a difference for our company, our customers and our community. We are an equal opportunity employer and the inclusive atmosphere we build together will make room for every person to contribute, grow and thrive.\nWe are committed to creating an inclusive and accessible hiring experience for all candidates. If you require accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process, please let us know and we will work with you to meet your needs.\nLearn more about the Commerce team, culture and benefits at https://www.commerce.com/careers/\nIdentity Verification\nTo protect our candidates and company from fraudulent activity, our interview process includes a government ID and biometric verification via Persona, our trusted identity verification provider. All information is collected and processed securely in accordance with applicable privacy laws.\nProtect Yourself Against Hiring Scams: Our Corporate Disclaimer\nCommerce, along with many other employers, has become the subject of fraudulent job offers to hopeful prospective job seekers.\nBe advised:\nCommerce does not offer jobs to individuals who do not go through our formal hiring process.\nCommerce will never:\nrequire payment of recruitment fees from candidates;\nrequest personally identifiable information through unsanctioned websites or applications;\nattempt to solicit money from you as part of the hiring process or as part of an employment offer;\nsolicit money to complete visa requirements as part of a job offer.\nIf you receive unsolicited offers of employment from Commerce, we urge you to be extremely cautious and avoid engaging or responding.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7575,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Commerce","Design & Creative","Branding"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-26T07:20:43Z"}],"liveness":{"score":80,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.886,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":15,"expected_fill_days":41,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-10-01T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":244560,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/makeswift-lead-software-engineer-ai","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/makeswift-lead-software-engineer-ai.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-01T11:24:08Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":3040,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":1960,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-02T00:00:00Z"}}}