Senior Software Development Engineer III - Backend Infrastructure & Agentic AI Platforms (#26-072)

About this role

Strategic Analysis, Inc. (SA) Is seeking a Software Engineer to support the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H)


Overview:

The GRACE team at ARPA-H is building the next generation of agentic AI to transform how the agency accelerates research, makes decisions, and ships products at scale. GRACE is ARPA-H's production AI assistant, and we are evolving it into an ecosystem of autonomous, multi-agent systems. They are a small, startup-minded team that ships fast and owns what we build end-to-end. They are looking for a senior SDE III who can own the backend infrastructure GRACE runs on, while also being a first-principles builder of the agentic AI systems that run on top of it. On a lean team, infra and AI are not separate concerns. You will own both, and you will treat production reliability, token economics, security, and observability as non-negotiable from day one.
The best person for this role starts with the user. They ask why before they ask how. They communicate clearly, give and receive feedback well, and make the people around them better. They have a high bar, a high sense of urgency, and they play well with others.


Responsibilities:

- Backend Infrastructure
- Agentic AI & Protocol Infrastructure
- Observability & Production Quality
- Engineering Excellence


Requirements:

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating production systems
• Proven experience in high-velocity environments where you owned and shipped complex products end-to-end
• Strong proficiency in Python and at least one other backend language; familiarity with modern backend frameworks and async patterns
• Solid understanding of distributed systems, APIs, data pipelines, and software design patterns
• Hands-on experience on Microsoft Azure: Azure Functions, API Management, Container Apps, and Azure OpenAI Service
• Experience with containerization, CI/CD, and infrastru...