Software engineer jobs in Chicago, IL

About the role

As a Staff Software Developer, you will have ownership over the architecture and technical direction of platform-wide services and APIs, with AI-powered capabilities as a first-class part of that architecture. Only job-related convictions will be considered and will not automatically disqualify the candidate.

What you'll bring

• You shape and define technical strategy rather than waiting for it to be handed to you, and you're equally comfortable writing production code and influencing an architecture decision across three teams.
• You're a forward-deployed thinker who evaluates new technology, agentic AI included, on its actual platform value, and you bring the credibility to get other senior engineers to follow your lead.
• You genuinely enjoy mentoring, you'd rather grow another engineer's judgment than just hand them the answer, and you measure a good week partly by how much simpler you made someone else's job.
• You default to building things that outlast the project they were built for.
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including architecting complex, end-to-end platform solutions across multiple technology domains
• Strong command of object-oriented programming and design patterns, including domain-driven design (DDD), event-driven architecture, and microservices
• Proficiency in at least one backend language - Java, C#, or Python
• Proven full-stack experience end-to-end, designing and building RESTful APIs from the data layer through to the services that consume them
• Hands-on experience building AI-powered features (LLMs, AI agents) and using AI coding tools such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or Cursor responsibly to accelerate your own development work
• Deep, hands-on experience with cloud-native architecture on Azure and/or AWS
• Track record of simplifying how other engineers work and writing clear, accessible documentation for what you build
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical trade-offs to both engineers and business stakeholders

Benefits