Software Engineer - Data & AI Products

About the Role

You'll be one of the primary engineers building data products and AI-enabled services for AAE. The work spans data pipelines, scoring models, API services, LLM integrations, and internal tools. Projects range from productizing proprietary data signals to building intelligent automation for our sales team. This is applied AI engineering, not ML research or model training.

You’ll report to the CTO and work closely with the Chief Innovation Officer, who leads product direction, executing on both new initiatives and enhancements to existing systems. Specs are clear, architecture decisions are collaborative, and the pace is fast. Although we use AI development tools (e.g. Claude Code), we expect you to know about how software should be designed and being able to direct, review, and ship production-quality code efficiently.

What You'll Do

• Build and maintain data pipelines that move data between internal systems, external APIs, and analytics environments
• Design and implement backend services and APIs for data products and internal tools
• Work with vector databases, embeddings, and LLM APIs to build AI-enabled features
• Build internal web applications and dashboards
• Integrate with internal systems (CRM, analytics, content platforms) via REST APIs
• Own the full lifecycle: data ingestion, processing, serving, frontend delivery, and reliability
• Write production-quality code with appropriate testing, monitoring, and error handling
• Participate in bidirectional code reviews to maintain code quality and consistency

What We're Looking For

• ~5 years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong Python skills.
• Solid understanding of software design patterns, API design, and how to structure a codebase that other people (and future you) can work in
• Experience with relational databases (SQL, query optimization, schema design)
• Comfort with data pipelines and ETL workflows. You've moved data between systems, dealt with messy source data, and built scheduled batch jobs.
• Experience with REST API development (any framework)
• Ability to work independently with clear specs and direct access to the product lead

Nice to Have

• Experience with vector databases or embedding-based search (pgvector, Pinecone, Weaviate, or similar)
• Familiarity with LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) and prompt engineering patterns
• BigQuery or similar cloud data warehouse experience
• Frontend development skills (React or equivalent). You don't need to be a frontend specialist, but you should be able to build a functional web UI.
• Experience with containerized deployments (Docker)
• Exposure to information retrieval concepts (TF-IDF, cosine similarity, ranking models)
• Experience with Ruby or Ruby on Rails (existing CRM system technologies)

About AAE

We help event planners secure high-impact speakers, celebrities, experts, and entertainment that turn standard events into unforgettable experiences. Since 2002, we’ve helped the world’s leading organizations secure exceptional speakers, leveraging a track record of over 20,000 events and approximately $500M in speakers and entertainment secured to ensure every client finds the perfect fit for their event.

Our success is built on a high-performance culture that values teamwork, growth, and doing work that matters. That commitment has earned us multi-year Best Place to Work recognition from Inc. Magazine and the Triangle Business Journal. We take pride in being a premier partner for our clients, securing the world’s leading speakers, celebrities, experts, and entertainment.

How You Live Our Values

• Own the Outcome: You take responsibility for your code, your pipelines, and the product quality from prototype through production.
• Be Solution-Oriented: You focus on what can be built with the tools and data available, not what can't.
• Default to Action: You ship working software, iterate, and improve. You don't wait for perfect specs to start building.
• Win Together: You collaborate with the innovation team, the CTO's engineering team, and the CRM team to deliver a product that works end to end.
• Keep It Human: You build tools that make agents' jobs easier, not tools that replace human judgment.

Role Details

• Full-time role based in Durham, NC.
• Expected full-time in office for the first week.
• Flexible hybrid remote options to be discussed after initial onboarding. Most engineers work remotely but come into the office for important meetings and team events.
• Competitive benefits, 401(k) with match, annual individual and team bonuses, PTO, regular Bonusly awards, and growth opportunities.