Senior Software Engineer - Confluent Applied AI for DevProd

IBM is a leader in AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. They are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to build applied AI systems that enhance developer productivity by designing and implementing reliable engineering workflows. The role involves owning projects from design to implementation, collaborating with various teams, and maintaining high engineering standards.

Responsibilities:

• Design and operate AI-assisted workflows for code review, ticket-to-PR flows, documentation, and CI/CD guardrails
• Own projects end-to-end: from definition and design to implementation, rollout, and optimization
• Build backend services and orchestration layers connecting LLMs to developer systems (GitHub, Jira, Slack, CI, and internal platforms)
• Translate ambiguous engineering challenges into practical, opinionated products that improve developer velocity and quality
• Collaborate with platform teams to integrate AI workflows into standard runtimes, managed workloads, and deployment paths
• Implement robust safety and governance, including access control, policy enforcement, and observability
• Use data-driven metrics—adoption, reliability, and cost—to guide product iterations rather than anecdotal feedback
• Maintain high engineering standards through clean, well-tested code and thoughtful design reviews

Requirements:

• Experience building and operating backend production systems
• Proficiency in at least one major language (e.g., Java, Go, Python)
• Experience building internal developer-facing platforms or workflow automation tools
• Hands-on experience applying LLM techniques to software engineering workflows; ability to build reliable systems beyond generic prompting
• Experience with cloud-native infrastructure, including containers and Kubernetes
• Strong judgment on software quality, testing strategies, and operational guardrails
• Product mindset: focus on user adoption, time-saving, and quality improvements
• Effective collaboration skills across cross-functional boundaries
• Experience building AI-assisted workflows for code review, test generation, incident response, or developer onboarding
• Integrating systems with developer tools (source control, CI, issue trackers, chat tools, internal portals)
• Familiarity with platform foundations like service runtimes, progressive delivery, and configuration systems
• Expertise in distributed systems, developer productivity, or infrastructure-heavy environments
• Experience creating opinionated paved paths and governance models