Principal AI Software Engineer; Java, Scala

Overview

We offer a flexible working policy that supports a healthy balance between personal and professional wellbeing. This role requires in-office presence on Tuesdays & Thursdays to collaborate, connect, and learn from peers while maintaining flexibility for meaningful work-life balance.

Being an AI Principal Software Engineer at iManage Means…

You'll be at the forefront of AI research and practical engineering, working at the intersection where cutting-edge ML meets production systems serving millions of user queries. You'll work on a small, autonomous team with direct customer contact, taking ideas from the lab into production within an established DMS company with petabytes of data. This is an opportunity to make our customers' data truly work for them through AI-powered experiences.

We view research and engineering as two sides of the same coin. You'll be shaping a new offering by learning directly from customers, analysing usage patterns, and applying your engineering skills to create transformative user experiences. You'll have the autonomy to experiment, fail fast, and iterate rapidly while building on iManage's decades of trust in the legal sector.

• Designing and implementing retrieval systems that bridge traditional search with modern semantic understanding, making legal documents accessible to AI agents at scale
• Working directly with early adopter customers to understand their workflows, gather feedback, and rapidly iterate on solutions that solve their problems
• Building and optimising production systems that handle thousands of concurrent queries while maintaining sub-second latency
• Developing evaluation frameworks and metrics to continuously improve retrieval quality
• Taking ownership of complex challenges end-to-end, from initial research through production deployment
• Balancing research goals with practical engineering constraints, knowing when to leverage AI and when to build traditional solutions

• The heart of a maker with hunger to solve complex problems and humbleness to maintain a learning mindset
• Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science with strong theoretical foundations in algorithms, data structures, and distributed systems
• 7+ years of engineering experience building and shipping production software
• Deep expertise in JVM ecosystem (Java/Scala) with proven ability to build high-performance, fault-tolerant systems
• Proven ability to be a "manager of one" - self-directed, taking initiative, and owning challenges
• Good judgment about when to apply AI solutions versus traditional engineering approaches

• Strong software engineering skills with a track record of building systems that scale in a SaaS environment
• Production experience with LLMs, including prompt engineering, context engineering, and token management
• Experience with implementing hybrid search strategies combining BM25 with vector embeddings, develop relevance algorithms and result ranking systems
• Experience with functional programming paradigms and their application to complex data processing problems
• Hands-on experience with evaluation frameworks for ML systems and A/B testing at scale
• Expertise in Kubernetes, Azure cloud services, and modern Dev Ops practices

• Creating an inclusive environment where you’re encouraged to help shape the culture by bringing your unique perspective, not just by fitting in.
• Providing a market leading salary determined through a fair and consistent process, equitable for all our employees, and regularly reviewed against industry benchmarks.
• Rewarding me with an annual performance-based bonus.
• Providing enhanced parental leave (20 weeks for primary and 10 weeks for secondary caregiver at 100% pay)
• Matching my pension contribution (up to 6%)
• Offering BUPA private medical insurance & a Simplyhealth cash plan to assist with the everyday costs.
• Providing Group life cover, including life insurance, income protection, and critical illness protection.
• Encouraging me to make use of our top-tier flexible time off policy, which includes 25 days of annual leave and…