Software Engineer, Early Stage Project

About X

X is Alphabet’s moonshot factory, committed to inventing and launching breakthrough technologies that aspire to make the world a radically better place. We are a diverse group of inventors and entrepreneurs who build and launch technologies aimed at improving the lives of millions, even billions, of people. Our audacious goal is to achieve 10x impact on the world’s most intractable problems, moving far beyond incremental 10% improvements. We embrace projects with the aspiration and inherent riskiness of cutting-edge research, yet execute with the speed and ambition characteristic of a startup. As an innovation engine, X continuously transforms breakthrough-technology ideas into the foundations for large, sustainable businesses.

About The Team

This is a small, passionate, and driven team composed of experienced ML researchers, software engineers, and product managers. Our mission is to radically enhance the efficiency and accuracy of legal practices. Our current project focuses on de-risking our core technology, refining tech prototypes, conducting experiments with partners, and developing a robust product prototype along with comprehensive business plans. Our team culture is built on mutual care, respect, individual competence, and, most importantly, fun!

About The Role of Software Engineer, Early Stage Project

As a generalist Software Engineer, Early Stage Project, you will take end-to-end ownership of developing breakthrough technologies that heavily leverage large language models. Your responsibilities will span the entire stack, encompassing occasional light frontend development, the Python microservice layer, associated APIs, data storage solutions, bulk data processing on Google Cloud Platform, and some light DevOps work. You will collaborate closely with domain experts to refine and iterate on our technology stack, and your expertise will be crucial in conceiving and implementing novel and impactful ideas.

How You Will Make 10X Impact

• Design and implement robust, automated, production-grade software using horizontally scalable components, applying software engineering best practices. This includes ensuring strong code quality and understanding the full software release lifecycle, such as unit testing, CI/CD, and production operations.
• Work effectively with cross-functional teams comprising engineers, product managers, and domain experts.
• Leverage Generative AI tools (similar to Codex or Claude) to significantly multiply your productivity.
• Cultivate a strong growth mindset; partner with senior engineers, embrace challenges, and continuously learn new things.

What You Should Have

• A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science is preferred, or at least 4+ years of professional experience in engineering software products.
• On-the-job experience designing, developing, maintaining, and releasing software, along with ownership in making product tradeoffs and design decisions.
• Strong proficiency in Python development, including experience with the latest Python toolchains and frameworks (e.g., uv, ruff, fastapi, Pydantic).
• Experience interacting with diverse data storage solutions (e.g., NoSQL, SQL, blob storage) and understanding their respective pros and cons.
• Experience managing software in production environments, including configuration, deployment, and monitoring.
• Experience with major Cloud providers such as Google Cloud Platform or AWS.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, demonstrated through design documents and pull request descriptions.
• Ability to work in the Mountain View office at least 3 days per week.

It’d Be Great If You Had These

• Experience with infrastructure-as-code, such as Terraform.
• Exposure to production systems that rely heavily on ML models, and/or experience with model deployment.
• Experience working in startup-like environments where priorities and directions can change rapidly.
• A track record of delivering high-quality solutions to large, complex software problems.
• Experience in finding the exact right meme or GIF for any situation (a bonus for team camaraderie!).
• A joy in learning new technologies, learning from teammates, and teaching them as well.
• Passion for delighting users, and the ability to extract energy from both positive and constructive feedback.
• Experience in agonizing over a technical decision for about ten minutes before understanding what the product and the team needs most and doing that (and still wondering if you did the right thing, in a good way).

Key skills/competency

• Software Engineering
• Python
• Large Language Models (LLMs)
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Microservices
• API Development
• Data Storage Solutions
• DevOps
• CI/CD
• Generative AI