Senior Software Engineer (AI Applications)

About Us

Vanilla is the leading estate advisory platform that makes it easy to deliver holistic wealth planning for every client. With Vanilla, you get powerful software for client engagement, estate planning, analysis, and document creation–all supercharged with AI and 180+ years of T&E expertise. Leading advisors from firms like Vanguard, Mariner, and Hightower trust Vanilla to model 16,000+ client estates, grow revenue, and expand relationships for generations to come.

Job Summary

Vanilla is seeking a Senior Software Engineer - AI Applications with a strong background in software development, data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. You will be utilizing existing Large Language Models to build applied AI applications focused on producing high accuracy rates. Your software engineer skills will come into play here as you’ll take ownership in constructing services to ingest structured results. If you’re a proactive problem-solver who lives to disrupt archaic processes with cutting-edge technology, this job is for you.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will work collaboratively with engineering and subject matter experts to find innovative and disruptive uses of AI to streamline (or replace) workflows.

This role is a remote position, you must be based out of one of the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MN, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TX, UT, VA, WA, or WA D.C.

Responsibilities

• Machine learning and AI: You are passionate and knowledgeable about the current and future state of AI.

• You will be utilizing existing Large Language Models to build applied AI applications focused on producing high accuracy rates. Your software engineer skills will come into play here as you'll take ownership in constructing services to ingest results.

• You will work with product, and engineering teams and build models/services that can ingest data, extract key information and surface insights.

• You can drive technical vision and leverage open source technologies and cloud services to build an AI/ML platform.

• You can build tooling to support model training, evaluation, inference serving, monitoring and alerting.

• You want to use the latest ML frameworks and open source tools to develop new model training pipelines.

• Hands On Coding: You have direct experience with software engineering and are familiar with modern languages like Python, Javascript, Go, Rust

• You have experience building microservices and understand the tradeoffs of the approach.

• Data handling: You can identify, extract, transform, and load data from disparate sources into a centralized system. You are able to normalize, cleanse, and validate this data.

• Database management: You are able to design and implement schemas, optimize queries, and manage database performance.

• Project management: You must be an effective self-organizer: prioritize tasks, manage resources, and communicate effectively with non-technical stakeholders.

• Collaboration: We are one team. You must be able to collaborate with engineers, subject matter experts, product managers, and designers to ensure the success of projects.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years relevant work experience.
• Proficiency in, at least, one modern programming language such as Python or Javascript.
• Experience integrating with backend services, and APIs.
• Experience with OpenAI, ChatGPT or similar software.
• Strong knowledge of SQL (Structured Query Language) for querying and manipulating data.
• Experience in data normalization, data cleansing, and data validation techniques.
• Deep understanding of machine learning and AI technologies, including the ability to design, train, and implement machine learning models and use natural language processing techniques for automation.
• Experience with API design and implementation for accessing data from external sources.
• Ability to effectively articulate technical challenges and solutions.
• Deal well with ambiguous/undefined problems; ability to think abstractly.
• Knowledge of professional software engineering practices & best practices for the full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations.
• Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for sponsorship now or in the future. Vanilla is unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.

✅ You Might Be a Great Fit If

• You have hands-on experience with AI and Large Language Models (LLMs). You’ve worked with OpenAI, GPT models, or other similar technologies and have integrated them into real-world applications.
• You are a critically thinking software engineer. You have built and maintained scalable microservices and understand the tradeoffs of this architecture.
• You can build AI-powered applications with high accuracy. You understand the challenges of AI implementation and know how to optimize models, fine-tune them, and create efficient pipelines for training, evaluation, and deployment.
• You are a problem-solver and innovator. You love tackling undefined, ambiguous problems and applying AI to disrupt outdated processes. You’re excited about revolutionizing estate planning with cutting-edge technology.

❌ You May Not Be a Great Fit If

• You are primarily a data scientist or ML researcher, rather than a software engineer. While AI and machine learning are key components of this role, we need a strong application developer first. You should be comfortable building production-ready software, integrating AI models into applications, designing APIs, and working with databases. If your experience is mostly in research, data modeling, or experimentation without deploying AI-driven applications, this may not be the right fit.
• You prefer working in highly structured, slow-moving environments. At Vanilla, we move fast and iterate quickly.

Benefits

• Flexible paid time off policy and 10 company-wide paid holidays
• Parental leave, 4 weeks for all full-time employees and up to 12 weeks for birthing parents
• Medical, dental, and vision benefits coverage for employees and their families
• 401K eligibility after one month of employment
• Budget for learning & development, health & wellness, and home office setup
• Paid parking or transit for hybrid and in office employees

_Vanilla Technologies Inc. (dba "Vanilla") provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

_Vanilla participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S.