Senior Software Engineer, Applied AI

• Build and maintain sophisticated agent skills and agentic tooling that integrate AI across engineering and operational workflows
• Integrate AI content retrieval systems, such as Sanity’s Agent Context, into production workflows
• Build services (e.g., API and MCP endpoints) that surface Cato’s 50 years of policy research for diverse consuming applications
• Build and extend features, components, and shared packages across both the TypeScript / React content platform and the Python research and operations platform
• Extend and harden core infrastructure packages across both platforms: API client integration, streaming data pipelines, document processing, and structured logging
• Maintain testing infrastructure across both platforms, closing coverage gaps and integrating tests into continuous integration workflows

Likely Initial Focus Areas (First 6 - 12 Months)

• Contribute to the content platform’s march toward production, picking up feature work, migration tasks, and building pipeline improvements
• Develop familiarity with both codebases through Cato’s AI development infrastructure — project instruction files, quality enforcement hooks, and structured reasoning frameworks that provide persistent architectural context and catch errors in real time
• Build out test suites for both platforms, prioritizing high-dependency packages and critical paths

• Bachelor’s degree in any field
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including work on production systems
• Expertise with multiple major LLMs: Claude, ChatGPT, and/or Gemini
• Expertise with agentic AI development tools (Claude Code, Codex, or similar), including authoring reusable agent capabilities — agent skills, structured workflows, and tool integrations — not just using them
• Proficiency in TypeScript / React or Python, with demonstrated ability to work productively in languages and frameworks outside your primary expertise
• Experience building or integrating LLM-enabled systems — prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, tool use, or evaluation pipelines

Knowledge and Skills

• Strong software engineering fundamentals: testing, version control, CI/CD, code review, and systems design
• Comfort working across the stack — backend services, frontend components, data pipelines, and build infrastructure
• Clear written and verbal communication; ability to document systems and explain technical decisions to non-engineers
• Self-directed, adaptable, and comfortable with ambiguity in a small team where priorities shift
• Familiarity with Cato’s work or demonstrated interest in public policy

• Familiarity with headless CMS platforms, content modeling, or structured content systems
• Experience building streaming or pipeline-based data processing systems
• Experience with AI output evaluation frameworks or quality benchmarking tools
• Experience authoring and maintaining agent skills (such as Claude/Claude Code Skills) or comparable agentic workflow packages
• Familiarity with think tank, research, government, or academic technology environments

All Cato employees are provided:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Employer contribution to a Health Savings Account (HSA)
• Generous vacation and sick days
• Paid parental leave
• Employer-provided life and disability insurance
• 401(k) employer match
• Transit/Parking benefits
• Pet discount plan

Please submit the following materials :

• Resume or CV
• A cover letter making the case, to yourself as much as to us, for why this particular job at this particular organization. Go beyond ATS-focused keyword slop and get real.
• Optional: links to code repositories, personal projects, or technical writing

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis.

This position does not offer visa sponsorship.