Senior Backend Software Engineer

About the Role:

Grade Level (for internal use):

03Who We Are

Kensho is a 120-person AI and machine learning company within S&P Global. With expertise in Machine Learning and data discovery, we develop and deploy novel solutions for S&P Global and its customers worldwide. Our solutions help businesses harness the power of data and Artificial Intelligence to innovate and drive progress. Kensho's solutions and research focus on speech recognition, entity linking, document extraction, automated database linking, text classification, natural language processing, and more. 

Are you looking to solve hard problems and enjoy working with teammates with diverse perspectives? If so, we would love to help you excel here at Kensho. 

About The Team

Kensho’s Applications group develops the web apps and APIs that deliver Kensho’s AI capabilities to our customers.  Our teams are small, product-focused, and intent on shipping high-quality code that best leverages our efforts.  We’re collegial, humble, and inquisitive, and we delight in learning from teammates with backgrounds, skills, and interests different from our own.

Kensho Link team, within the Applications Department, is a machine learning service that allows users to map entities in their datasets with unique entities drawn from S&P Global’s world-class company database with precision and speed. Link started as an internal Kensho project to help S&P Global Market Intelligence Team to integrate datasets more quickly into their platform. It uses ML based algorithms trained to return high quality links, even when the data inputs are incomplete or contain errors. In simple words, Kensho’s Link product helps in connecting the disconnected information about a company at one place – and it does so with scale. Link leverages a variety of NLP and ML techniques to process and link millions of company entities in hours. 

About The Role

As a Senior Backend Engineer you will develop reliable, secure, and performant APIs that apply Kensho’s AI capabilities to specific customer workflows.  You will collaborate with colleagues from Product, Machine Learning, Infrastructure, and Design, as well as with other engineers within Applications.  You have a demonstrated capacity for depth, and are comfortable working with a broad range of technologies.  Your verbal and written communication is proactive, efficient, and inclusive of your geographically-distributed colleagues.  You are a thoughtful, deliberate technologist and share your knowledge generously.

Equivalent to Grade 11 Role (Internal)

You will:

• Design, develop, test, document, deploy, maintain, and improve software

• Manage individual project priorities, deadlines, and deliverables

• Work with key stakeholders to develop system architectures, API specifications, implementation requirements, and complexity estimates

• Test assumptions through instrumentation and prototyping

• Promote ongoing technical development through code reviews, knowledge sharing, and mentorship

• Optimize Application Scaling: Efficiently scale ML applications to maximize compute resource utilization and meet high customer demand. 

• Address Technical Debt: Proactively identify and propose solutions to reduce technical debt within the tech stack. 

• Enhance User Experiences: Collaborate with Product and Design teams to develop ML-based solutions that enhance user experiences and align with business goals. 

• Ensure API security and data privacy by implementing best practices and compliance measures.

• Monitor and analyze API performance and reliability, making data-driven decisions to improve system health.

• Contribute to architectural discussions and decisions, ensuring scalability, maintainability, and performance of the backend systems.

Qualifications

• At least 5+ years of direct experience developing customer-facing APIs within a team

• Thoughtful and efficient communication skills (both verbal and written)

• Experience developing RESTful APIs using a variety of tools

• Experience turning abstract business requirements into concrete technical plans

• Experience working across many stages of the software development lifecycle

• Sound reasoning about the behavior and performance of loosely-coupled systems

• Proficiency with algorithms (including time and space complexity analysis), data structures, and software architecture

• At least one domain of demonstrable technical depth

• Familiarity with CI/CD practices and tools to streamline deployment processes.

• Experience with containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) for application deployment and orchestration.

Technologies We Love

• Python, Django, FastAPI

• mypy, OpenAPI

• RabbitMQ, Celery, Kafka

• OpenSearch, PostgreSQL, Redis

• Git, Jsonnet, Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes

• Airflow, AWS, Terraform

• Grafana, Prometheus

• ML Libraries: PyTorch, Scikit-learn, Pandas 

What’s In It For You?

Our Purpose:

Progress is not a self-starter. It requires a catalyst to be set in motion. Information, imagination, people, technology–the right combination can unlock possibility and change the world.

Our world is in transition and getting more complex by the day. We push past expected observations and seek out new levels of understanding so that we can help companies, governments and individuals make an impact on tomorrow. At S&P Global we transform data into Essential Intelligence®, pinpointing risks and opening possibilities. We Accelerate Progress.

Our People:

We're more than 35,000 strong worldwide—so we're able to understand nuances while having a broad perspective. Our team is driven by curiosity and a shared belief that Essential Intelligence can help build a more prosperous future for us all.

From finding new ways to measure sustainability to analyzing energy transition across the supply chain to building workflow solutions that make it easy to tap into insight and apply it. We are changing the way people see things and empowering them to make an impact on the world we live in. We’re committed to a more equitable future and to helping our customers find new, sustainable ways of doing business. We’re constantly seeking new solutions that have progress in mind. Join us and help create the critical insights that truly make a difference.

Our Values:
 

Integrity, Discovery, Partnership

At S&P Global, we focus on Powering Global Markets. Throughout our history, the world's leading organizations have relied on us for the Essential Intelligence they need to make confident decisions about the road ahead. We start with a foundation of integrity in all we do, bring a spirit of discovery to our work, and collaborate in close partnership with each other and our customers to achieve shared goals.

Benefits:

We take care of you, so you can take care of business. We care about our people. That’s why we provide everything you—and your career—need to thrive at S&P Global.

Our benefits include: 

• Health & Wellness: Health care coverage designed for the mind and body.

• Flexible Downtime: Generous time off helps keep you energized for your time on.

• Continuous Learning: Access a wealth of resources to grow your career and learn valuable new skills.

• Invest in Your Future: Secure your financial future through competitive pay, retirement planning, a continuing education program with a company-matched student loan contribution, and financial wellness programs.

• Family Friendly Perks: It’s not just about you. S&P Global has perks for your partners and little ones, too, with some best-in class benefits for families.

• Beyond the Basics: From retail discounts to referral incentive awards—small perks can make a big difference.

For more information on benefits by country visit: https://spgbenefits.com/benefit-summaries

Inclusive Hiring and Opportunity at S&P Global:

At S&P Global, we are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace where all individuals have access to opportunities based on their skills, experience, and contributions. Our hiring practices emphasize fairness, transparency, and equal opportunity, ensuring that we attract and retain top talent. By valuing different perspectives and promoting a culture of respect and collaboration, we drive innovation and power global markets.

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Equal Opportunity Employer

S&P Global is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race/ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, marital status, military veteran status, unemployment status, or any other status protected by law.  Only electronic job submissions will be considered for employment.  

 

If you need an accommodation during the application process due to a disability, please send an email to: EEO.Compliance@spglobal.com and your request will be forwarded to the appropriate person.  
 
US Candidates Only:  The EEO is the Law Poster http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/eeopost.pdf describes discrimination protections under federal law.  Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision - https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ofccp/pdf/pay-transp_%20English_formattedESQA508c.pdf

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20 - Professional (EEO-2 Job Categories-United States of America), BSMGMT203 - Entry Professional (EEO Job Group)