Senior Software Engineer, AI Platforms and Products

Company: The New York Times
Location: New York City
Posted on: April 1, 2026

Job Description:

The mission of The New York Times is to seek the truth and help people understand the world. That means independent journalism is at the heart of all we do as a company. It’s why we have a world-renowned newsroom that sends journalists to report on the ground from nearly 160 countries. It’s why we focus deeply on how our readers will experience our journalism, from print to audio to a world-class digital and app destination. And it’s why our business strategy centers on making journalism so good that it’s worth paying for. About the Role, Mission or Department Overview The New AI Products and Platforms mission is a central hub for new, high-ambition AI opportunities and services at The Times. We are hiring a Senior Software Engineer to help build the backend services and infrastructure that will form our internal AI Platform. This platform will enable teams across the company to build, deploy, and manage applications that use large language models (LLMs) to advance our journalism and our business. You will report to the Director of AI Platforms and work with a team of engineers, designers, product and project managers, data scientists, and newsroom stakeholders to make investments in AI possible across The Times. This is a hybrid position based in our New York City headquarters. You can typically expect to come into the office two days per week. Responsibilities: Design, build, and maintain scalable and reliable backend services and APIs for a central platform used by teams building AI applications across our journalism and our business. Take ownership of core platform components and integrations, including systems for prompt and workflow management, evaluation and tracing, and monitoring for cost, usage, and performance. Build and operate vector database and retrieval infrastructure to support search and AI-powered discovery experiences. Design and develop retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and agentic workflows that connect our content, data, and AI models. Build orchestration layers for multi-step AI workflows, managing the coordination of LLM calls, retrieval, and business logic. Develop the infrastructure that enables teams to create and manage their AI applications, complete with metadata, observability, and access controls. Architect and implement data pipelines and storage solutions to support our AI systems. Write high-quality, maintainable, and well-tested code, primarily in backend languages like Python or Go. Ensure a high degree of code quality, security, and system observability. Collaborate with editorial, product, ML, and data teams to translate requirements into platform capabilities. Review code written by other software engineers on the team and provide feedback. Contribute to and advocate for robust testing strategies to ensure service reliability. Be a mentor to other software engineers to enable their growth. Demonstrate support and understanding of our value of journalistic independence and a strong commitment to our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world. Basic Qualifications: 5 years of software engineering experience, with a strong focus on backend development. 5 years of experience in one or more backend programming languages such as Python or Go. 5 years of experience designing, building, and operating distributed systems and APIs at scale. 1 years of experience building applications with Large Language Models (LLMs) and familiarity with the surrounding ecosystem (e.g., orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation). Preferred Qualifications: Experience with MLOps, including building systems for model and prompt evaluation, tracing, and monitoring. Experience with vector databases and embedding models or services. Experience with information retrieval or search systems. Experience building RAG systems or agentic AI workflows. Experience with prompt engineering and prompt management systems. Familiarity with containerization and orchestration technologies like Docker and Kubernetes. Experience with infrastructure as code (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation). Deep experience with cloud computing platforms like GCP or AWS and their associated services (e.g., Cloud Functions, S3, RDS). Experience with event-driven architectures and technologies such as Kafka or Pub/Sub. Familiarity with LLM orchestration and agentic frameworks. Experience with GraphQL. This role requires limited on-call hours. An on-call schedule will be determined when you join, taking into account team size and other variables. LI-Hybrid REQ-019837 The annual base pay range for this role is between: $140,000 - $160,000 USD For roles in the U.S., dependent on your role, you may be eligible for variable pay, such as an annual bonus and restricted stock. Benefits may include medical, dental and vision benefits, Flexible Spending Accounts (F.S.A.s), a company-matching 401(k) plan, paid vacation, paid sick days, paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement and professional development programs. For roles outside of the U.S., information on benefits will be provided during the interview process. The New York Times Company is committed to being the world’s best source of independent, reliable and quality journalism. To do so, we embrace a diverse workforce that has a broad range of backgrounds and experiences across our ranks, at all levels of the organization. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate on the basis of an individual's sex, age, race, color, creed, national origin, alienage, religion, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation or affectional preference, gender identity and expression, disability, genetic trait or predisposition, carrier status, citizenship, veteran or military status and other personal characteristics protected by law. All applications will receive consideration for employment without regard to legally protected characteristics. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)’s Know Your Rights Poster is available here . The New York Times Company will provide reasonable accommodations as required by applicable federal, state, and/or local laws. Individuals seeking an accommodation for the application or interview process should email reasonable.accommodations@nytimes.com. Emails sent for unrelated issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response. The Company encourages those with criminal histories to apply, and will consider their applications in a manner consistent with applicable "Fair Chance" laws, including but not limited to the NYC Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. For information about The New York Times' privacy practices for job applicants click here . Please beware of fraudulent job postings. Scammers may post fraudulent job opportunities, and they may even make fraudulent employment offers. This is done by bad actors to collect personal information and money from victims. All legitimate job opportunities from The New York Times will be accessible through The New York Times careers site . The New York Times will not ask job applicants for financial information or for payment, and will not refer you to a third party to do so. You should never send money to anyone who suggests they can provide employment with The New York Times. If you see a fake or fraudulent job posting, or if you suspect you have received a fraudulent offer, you can report it to The New York Times at NYTapplicants@nytimes.com. You can also file a report with the Federal Trade Commission or your state attorney general .

Keywords: The New York Times, Clifton , Senior Software Engineer, AI Platforms and Products, IT / Software / Systems , New York City, New Jersey