Staff Software Engineer Python & AI Agent Security Platform

Why Join Skyrelis?

• Build the world’s leading AI security & observability platform.
• Work on cutting-edge multi-cloud infrastructure and global PoP architecture.
• Own complex security + cloud problems end-to-end.
• Significant growth opportunity as one of the early engineers building the Skyrelis platform.

About the role

Skyrelis is looking for a Member of Technical Staff (MTS) / Staff Software Backend/Platform Engineer contractor to lead the design and development of cloud-native, Python-first systems that power AI agents, LLM integrations, safety/guardrails, and secure traffic inspection across modern deployments. This is a backend/platform role focused on production systems, security, and reliability. You will work on architecture, core platform services, proxy/HTTP systems, data pipelines, and AI agent runtime controls—shipping production-grade software with high reliability and strong security posture.

Responsibilities

• Lead  system design and architecture  for scalable backend/platform services supporting AI agents and LLM-driven workflows.
• Build and maintain  Python services and libraries  (APIs, pipelines, policy engines, telemetry, integrations).
• Develop secure, high-performance components involving:
• HTTP/HTTPS , TLS, certificates, and request/response processing
• Forward/explicit proxies , service-to-service traffic interception, and policy enforcement
• Design and implement  guardrails/safety controls  for AI agent workflows (prompt/response filtering, tool-use controls, policy checks, data loss prevention patterns).
• Build cloud-native deployments on  AWS and/or GCP , including CI/CD, observability, and cost-aware scalability.
• Drive debugging and incident resolution: deep dives across app, network, and infra layers.
• Design data models and storage for operational analytics using  OpenSearch/PostgreSQL  and related systems.
• Collaborate with product, security, and infra teams to define roadmaps, technical direction, and best practices.
• Mentor engineers and raise engineering quality through reviews, design docs, and operational excellence.

Required Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering , or equivalent practical experience.
• 7+ years  of hands-on software development experience with strong ownership of production systems.
• Strong background in  design and architecture  (distributed systems, APIs, reliability, scaling).
• Strong  Python  development experience; comfortable with additional languages (e.g.,  Go/Java/TypeScript/Rust ).
• 5+ years of working experience with FASTAPI or any other Python web framework.
• Working knowledge of  AWS and/or GCP  cloud deployments (networking, compute, IAM, security).
• Excellent  debugging  skills across application, network, and infrastructure layers.
• Solid understanding of  HTTP/HTTPS protocols , TLS, certificates, and traffic flows.
• Knowledge/experience with  proxies  (forward/explicit/reverse), authentication patterns, and request/response transformations.
• Experience with databases and search/analytics systems:  PostgreSQL, OpenSearch/Elasticsearch  (indexing, mappings, query patterns).

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of AI / LLM / Agent Technology Requirements
• Hands-on experience building  AI agents  using common frameworks (e.g.,  LangChain/LangGraph, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel ) and core patterns like  tool/function calling, planning/execution, memory, RAG, and multi-agent workflows .
• Practical integration with  LLM services/APIs  (e.g.,  OpenAI/Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Vertex/Gemini, AWS Bedrock ) including  streaming, structured outputs, routing/fallbacks .
• Experience implementing guardrails and safety controls (policy enforcement, prompt-injection defenses, PII/secrets detection, moderation, tool-use restrictions; tools like Prompt Guard, Guardrails AI, NeMo Guardrails, LLM Guard, etc.)
• Strong understanding of  RAG  and retrieval systems, including  embeddings, chunking/ranking , and using  vector search  (OpenSearch vector, pgvector, Pinecone/Weaviate/Milvus/FAISS).
• Familiarity with  evaluation and observability  for LLM/agent systems:  quality/safety metrics, cost/token tracking, OpenTelemetry tracing/logging .
• Experience building  security products  (DLP, policy enforcement, identity integration, audit logging).
• Experience with  service mesh / sidecars  (Istio/Envoy), certificate automation, or SDS/mTLS concepts.
• Experience with  Kubernetes  (EKS/GKE), Terraform/CloudFormation, and production operations.
• Experience with  OpenSearch  (data streams, index templates, ISM/ILM, dashboards) and performance tuning.

Tech Stack

• Languages:  Python (primary), plus Go/Java/TypeScript
• Cloud:  AWS/GCP, VPC networking, IAM, load balancers, CDN
• Data:  PostgreSQL, OpenSearch, Redis; optional vector DBs
• AI:  LangChain/LangGraph, LlamaIndex; OpenAI/Bedrock/Vertex/Gemini/Anthropic
• Observability:  OpenTelemetry, logs/metrics/traces, dashboards/alerting
• Security/Networking:  HTTP/HTTPS, TLS, proxies, authN/authZ, guardrails

Soft Skills

• Strong ownership and execution abilities.
• Excellent communication and documentation skills.
• Ability to operate independently in a fast-moving startup environment.
• Comfortable collaborating with engineering, security, and customer teams.

We’re grateful to everyone who takes the time to apply. While we’re unable to respond to every applicant, we’ll be in touch directly with those whose experience aligns closely with the role.