Senior Software Engineer, AI Engineer

Build a Safer World.

TRM Labs provides AI-powered intelligence solutions that help public and private sector agencies investigate and disrupt crime. TRM's platforms enable investigators to trace illicit activity, build cases, and construct operating pictures of threat networks. Leading agencies and businesses worldwide rely on TRM to make the world safer and more secure.

TRM's Intel team runs at the intersection of intelligence analysts, back-end systems, and AI. This role sits at that intersection. Its mandate is to make TRM's intelligence collection meaningfully better with AI . You'll work directly alongside our intel analysts to understand how they collect and act on intelligence, then build the AI-powered products, tooling, and infrastructure that let them do it faster and at greater scale.

We're looking for a senior engineer with genuine product sense, someone who can sit with a semi-technical analyst, see past the surface-level request, and identify the highest-impact, scalable thing to build. The failure mode we're explicitly hiring against is an engineer who rapidly ships a pile of narrow automations that pick at minor annoyances but don't move the needle. We want sticky, real products that advance the mission.

This is a hands-on role for someone who wants to stay deeply technical while also shaping what gets built, not just how .

The impact you’ll have here:

• Embed directly with our intel analysts to deeply understand their goals, constraints, and workflows, then translate those into technical solutions with clear success criteria.

• Identify the highest-leverage opportunities to improve intelligence collection — bringing a product lens to prioritization, not just an engineering one — and productize your work so it's adopted and durable.

• Design, build, and own AI-powered internal applications end-to-end: back-end services, APIs, data storage, the back-end infrastructure they run on, and user-facing interfaces.

• Develop custom agentic solutions leveraging state-of-the-art models (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini) to augment and scale intelligence workflows.

• Own projects end-to-end — technical design, architecture, scoping, delivery, iteration, and ongoing support.

• Build reliable, scalable systems on which analysts depend day to day.

• Continuously evaluate impact and iterate based on real outcomes for the Intel team.

What we’re looking for:

• 6+ years full-stack software engineering experience building scalable web applications, services, and APIs

• Strong product sense — the ability to zoom out, spot the highest-impact and most scalable solution, and ship it as something people actually keep using. This is the bar-raising skill for this role.

• Proficiency in Python and/or JavaScript/TypeScript, with strong back-end and systems engineering skills.

• Experience building backend systems, working with various datastores such as (Postgres/pgvector, Pinecone, Redis) and designing APIs.

• Demonstrated curiosity and hands-on experience with AI tools and applications - using modern AI models, agentic IDEs, or building AI-enabled workflows or prototypes.

• A high degree of ownership and initiative, with the ability to operate independently in ambiguous problem spaces

• Strong communication and the ability to build trust with semi-technical stakeholders (our analysts) and explain technical trade-offs clearly.

We're deliberately open on background: a strong back-end/systems engineer and a strong data/ML-leaning engineer can both thrive here. Seniority, sharpness, drive, and product sense matter more than a specific profile.

About the Team:

• The team operates on a weekly sprint schedule. Individuals on the team are tasked to lead projects as technical anchors, and given a chance to grow and take ownership according to their level and goals. We work closely with our internal stakeholders to deliver impactful features to our internal customers and the company.

• The team’s culture is built on psychological safety wherein team members build rapport and trust-based relationships with teammates, hold each other accountable and to a high bar, collaborate extensively, and have lots of fun along the way.

• The team’s timezone is a mix of EST and PST with at least 6 hours of overlap with PST (8 am to 2 pm PST)

• On-Call: We have an on-call rotation that is specific to internal tools. In this role, the internal tools engineer is responsible for triaging customer support requests from specific Slack channels pertaining to internal tools.

About TRM's Engineering Levels:

Engineer: Responsible for helping to define project milestones and executing small decision decisions independently with the appropriate tradeoffs between simplicity, readability, and performance. Provides mentorship to junior engineers, and enhances operational excellence through tech debt reduction and knowledge sharing.

Senior Engineer: Successfully designs and documents system improvements and features for an OKR/project from the ground up. Consistently delivers efficient and reusable systems, optimizes team throughput with appropriate tradeoffs, mentors team members, and enhances cross-team collaboration through documentation and knowledge sharing.

Staff Engineer: Drives scoping and execution of one or more OKRs/projects that impact multiple teams. Partners with stakeholders to set the team vision and technical roadmaps for one or more products. Is a role model and mentor to the entire engineering organization. Ensures system health and quality with operational reviews, testing strategies, and monitoring rigor.

The following represents the expected range of compensation for this role:

• Individual pay is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. The compensation details listed in this posting reflect the US base salary only.

• The estimated base salary range for this role is $200,000 - $220,000

• Additionally, this role may be eligible to participate in TRM’s equity plan.

• Please note – we factor in the different costs for geographies outside the United States.

Work Week Travel: This role requires participation in in-person R&D work weeks, typically 1–2 times per quarter, at a TRM hub or other designated location. Work weeks may be scheduled with as little as 14 days’ notice, and some roles may require additional travel based on team and cross-functional needs. TRM coordinates and covers approved travel, lodging, and workspace. Accommodations are available for legitimate caregiving, health, immigration, and similar constraints.

Application Instructions

If you’re interested in joining TRM, we encourage you to apply directly. Every application is reviewed by our Talent team.

Before applying, review the job description carefully and highlight the experience and impact that best demonstrate the required qualifications. Please also provide thoughtful and accurate answers to the application questions, as these will be used to evaluate your skills and qualifications for the role.

If you send your resume directly to someone at TRM, we can’t guarantee it will reach the appropriate hiring team. Applying directly is the best way to ensure your application will be considered.

Interviewing with TRM

Our process is designed to understand how you think, solve problems, and deliver impact, while allowing you to evaluate TRM. Most interview processes include a case study, an AI skills assessment, and a Leadership Principles interview.

• Recruiter Intro: Qualifications, motivations, and alignment with the role.

• Hiring Manager: Deep dive into your relevant experience, skills, and impact.

• First Round: 1–2 interviews focused on the skills most critical to the role.

• Final Round: Hands-on case study. This is usually a panel-style session where we go deeper into your craft, problem-solving, and alignment with TRM.

• References: Former colleagues who can provide insight into your work and impact.

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