Senior Software Engineer, AI Automation
TRM Labs · Full-time · Posted 3d ago
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.
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 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 you’re considered.
Our process is designed to understand how you think, solve problems, and deliver impact, while giving you the opportunity to evaluate TRM. Most interview processes include a case study, AI skills assessment, and Leadership Principles interview.
Recruiter Intro: Explore your experience, motivations, and alignment with the role.
Hiring Manager: Dive deeper into your relevant experience, skills, and impact.
First Round: Typically 1–2 interviews focused on the skills most critical to the role.
Final Round: Typically 3–5 interviews to go deeper on your craft, problem-solving, and alignment with TRM.
References: We’ll speak with former colleagues who can provide perspective on your work and impact.
Offer: If it’s a mutual fit, your recruiter will walk you through your offer and answer your questions.
Welcome to TRM: Once you sign, we’ll get you ready for your first day and onboarding.
Your recruiter will share your specific interview plan and preparation guidance along the way.
Learn more about interviewing at TRM
We are building a safer world. That promise shows up in how we work every day.
TRM moves quickly. We are a high velocity, high ownership team that expects clarity, follow-through, and impact. People who thrive here are energized by hard problems, experimentation, and continuous feedback. If something takes months elsewhere, it will ship here in days.
Our work sits at the intersection of AI, national security, and fighting crime. The problems are complex, the stakes are real, and the environment evolves quickly. The pace and intensity of the work reflect the importance of the mission. As a result, the way we operate requires a high level of ownership, adaptability, collaboration, and creative problem-solving.
At TRM, you should expect:
Priorities and targets to change quickly as we experiment and iterate
Work that often requires operating with a high degree of ambiguity
A high level of personal ownership and accountability
Close collaboration across teams and functions
Frequent, high-touch communication
Creative problem solving and out-of-the-box thinking
A pace that rewards urgency, adaptability, and outcomes
This environment is energizing for people who enjoy building, solving hard problems, and making progress in situations that are not always fully defined. It also requires comfort navigating ambiguity, adjusting course as new information emerges, and maintaining focus and positivity in a fast-moving and intense environment.
We also recognize that this style of operating is not for everyone. If you are primarily optimizing for predictability or a consistently balanced workload, we encourage you to use the interview process to pressure test whether this environment is truly the right fit. We want teammates who thrive here, not just survive here.
At the same time, many people find this work deeply rewarding. If you are excited by meaningful problems, motivated by ambitious goals, and energized by working alongside mission-driven colleagues, there is a good chance you will find TRM to be an exceptional place to grow and contribute. Learn more: Interviewing at TRM: How We Hire and What Success Looks Like
AI fluency is a baseline expectation at TRM.
We believe AI meaningfully changes how top performers operate. We expect every team member to use AI to accelerate and reimagine their craft, not just automate surface tasks.
At TRM, AI fluency means you are among the top 10 percent of operators in your function in how you apply AI to:
Accelerate repeatable workflows
Structure and solve problems
Improve output quality
Increase speed and leverage
You will be evaluated on applied AI fluency during the interview process.
We hire and grow against three leadership principles. They’re the standards for how we operate, treat each other, and make decisions.
Impact-Oriented Trailblazer: We put customers first and move with speed, focus, and adaptability. We treat every plan like an experiment – test, ship, measure, and iterate quickly.
Master Craftsperson: We care deeply about our craft. We balance speed with high standards, own outcomes end‑to‑end, and invest in getting better everyday.
Inspiring Colleague: We add clarity and energy, not noise. We bring humility, candor, and a one‑team mindset — giving and receiving feedback to make the team stronger.
At TRM we care deeply about our craft. We are looking for individuals who want their work to matter, who experiment with speed and rigor, and who take pride in building a safer world for billions of people. If you’re excited by TRM’s mission but don’t check every box, we encourage you to apply — we hire for slope, judgment, and the will to learn fast.
TRM is a Series C company with $220M in total funding, backed by Goldman Sachs, Bessemer, Y Combinator, Thoma Bravo, and others. Headquartered in San Francisco, TRM operates as a distributed-first company with hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., London, and Singapore.
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Because our hiring cycles for certain positions may span 24 to 36 months, we retain your personal information for up to 36 months from the date of your application. After that period, your data is deleted unless a different retention period is required or permitted by law.
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The use of AI tools of any kind (including but not limited to notetakers, interview assistants, and real-time coaching tools such as Otter.ai, Fireflies, Fathom, Cluey, or similar) during TRM interviews is not permitted without prior approval from TRM. TRM uses its own internal tools for note-taking to ensure a consistent and confidential experience for all candidates.
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