Senior Software Engineer (Legal), CoCounsel Forward Deployed Engineering

Thomson Reuters · United States of America, Frisco, Texas · $117,700 USD - $218,600 USD · hybrid As a Senior Software Engineer (Legal), you will work directly with legal customers and cross-functional teams to design, build, and improve sophisticated software and AI solutions for legal workflows. You will combine strong engineering fundamentals with legal fluency to translate real-world customer needs into secure, scalable, high-quality products. Key Responsibilities: Design, develop, test, and deploy end-to-end software solutions for complex legal workflows and AI-enabled products. Partner directly with legal customers to understand their needs, workflows, and challenges, translating requirements into scalable technical solutions. Architect and build modern cloud-native systems using distributed services, microservices, APIs, containerization, and orchestration technologies. Develop production-grade Python software while applying strong engineering practices for security, testing, reliability, and maintainability. Evaluate AI and LLM solutions for legal use cases, including assessing outputs for legal accuracy, relevance, reliability, and usability. Design, iterate, and optimize advanced prompting strategies for specialized legal-domain tasks. Apply DevOps and Infrastructure as Code practices to support secure, reliable, and automated deployments. Manage technical debt effectively while balancing immediate delivery needs with long-term scalability and system health. Mentor junior engineers through code reviews, technical guidance, coaching, and knowledge sharing. Collaborate with engineering, product, legal, and design partners to prioritize work, manage delivery commitments, and continuously improve the software development lifecycle. Required Qualifications: A JD, formal legal training, or equivalent depth of experience in a legal-practice environment. Fluency in legal terminology and experience working directly with or alongside legal teams. 5+ years of professional software engineering experience. Strong proficiency in Python and experience building production-grade software. Experience designing and delivering distributed systems, microservices, APIs, and cloud-native applications. Strong knowledge of AI and LLM evaluation methodologies. Advanced prompt-engineering skills, including the ability to design, test, iterate, and optimize prompts for legal-domain use cases. Experience evaluating AI-generated outputs for legal accuracy, relevance, reliability, and safety. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to engage credibly with both lawyers and engineers. Comfort working independently, navigating ambiguity, and presenting in client workshops or knowledge-sharing sessions. A collaborative, growth-oriented mindset and a commitment to secure engineering, ethical AI, privacy, and confidentiality. Benefits: Hybrid Work Model: flexible hybrid working environment Flexibility & Work-Life Balance: supportive workplace policies Career Development and Growth: culture of continuous learning and skill development Industry Competitive Benefits: comprehensive benefit plans Culture: award-winning reputation for inclusion and belonging, flexibility, work-life balance Social Impact: opportunities to get involved with pro-bono consulting projects and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives