Product Engineer
Location: NYC
Introduction - Learned Hand
Learned Hand, named after the venerable American jurist, is on a mission to enable the pursuit of justice through the best available technologies. We start by building AI tools for judges. Judges are inundated with overwhelming caseloads, and every second, make numerous legal decisions that impact countless lives. With our AI tools, we aim to lighten this burden, allowing judges to spend less time getting their work done and more time getting it right. Join us as we revolutionize not just the judiciary but the broader legal landscape, ensuring precision and efficiency in the workings of justice.
Why We Need You
At Learned Hand, we are fueled by the conviction that technology can substantially elevate the judicial process. Our success hinges entirely on the brilliance and dedication of our team. Imagine a courtroom where judges have an AI-powered JARVIS, bringing key information to them in seconds and enabling them to review every detail meticulously.
Your expertise will be the backbone of our AI tools, enabling fairer and more efficient judicial decisions. With you on board, we are not just building software; we're fostering trust, fairness, and a brighter future for the justice system.
Here’s What You’ll Be Doing
As a Product Engineer at Learned Hand, you will play a foundational role in designing, building, and maintaining the app that powers our innovative AI tools for the judiciary. Your responsibilities will be both diverse and impactful:
Design & Development
Build our app: Design and develop the web app that enables the workflows to access our AI technology.
Design new features: Collaborate with our data scientists to deliver cutting-edge, novel LLM workflows for legal offices.
Build for Speed: Prioritize the responsiveness of the software, carefully observing real-world performance and suggesting ways we can make the user experience faster.
Build for Security: Architect all workflows for data-safety and help us implement security protocols such as SOC 2.
Collaboration & Leadership
Team Collaboration: Work closely with back-end engineers, data scientists, and product managers to deliver seamless and efficient solutions.
Mentorship: Participate in code reviews, provide constructive feedback, and mentor junior engineers to maintain high-quality standards.
Continuous Improvement
Tech Exploration: Continuously explore and apply new technologies to keep our systems cutting-edge and efficient.
Self-Improvement: Maintain self-awareness of strengths and gaps, with a constant drive to learn and improve.
You Need These Qualifications
Humility and self-awareness, understanding that, as Mark Twain said, "it isn't that we don't know what causes the trouble; it's that we think we know that it just ain't so."
Passion and resourcefulness, always finding a way to overcome obstacles and achieve goals.
An unwavering optimism and a can-do attitude, always exploring how to build the future rather than focusing on limitations.
Technical Qualifications
[You do not need to match this job description exactly. If what we’re doing excites you and what you’d be doing with us excites you, then we’re excited to meet you and encourage you to apply regardless. You may still be the person we’re looking for!]
We’re currently looking for people who are passionate about:
The art and science of software engineering
Building products people will love
Doing work that is meaningful and that they are proud of
Growth, both personal and professional
Experience with our technical stack (React+Typescript on front end, Python/Django) is a heavy plus, but we encourage candidates who have worked with similar frameworks and principles in other languages (e.g. Vue/Svelte front ends, Ruby on Rails back ends, etc.) to apply.
What we most want is someone who:
Wants to work with these languages
Can demonstrate effectiveness with them
Understands good system design and architectural principles (Clean, Onion, etc), which are largely technology-agnostic
And if you happen to *already* have experience with our stack and can talk towards that, so much the better! We figure a senior candidate already knows how to write code in one or more languages, has experience with actively used systems in production, and can use their foundational knowledge in whatever environment they happen to be working in.
We similarly highly favor candidates with previous experience in startups. Whether those were successes, failures, or somewhere in between is immaterial to us but more an understanding of startup life. And to be clear, by “startup life” we do not mean “work 80 hours a week for barely subsistence level salary,” we mean:
Understanding the nature of pursuing product market fit, and that priorities and goals can often shift, especially in the face of customer feedback
Navigating engineering speed and engineering quality, and having a good sense of the tradeoffs involved and advocating for either
Having a product-first mindset vs. a code-first one
It Would Be Nice If …
You have experience mentoring engineers, including conducting code reviews, leading architecture discussions, and demonstrating leadership skills.
You have experience in productionizing LLMs, AI-pipelines, and ETLs, bringing sophisticated models into a live environment.
You have experience with product analytics frameworks to monitor app performance from a technical and a product perspective.
You have led an organization through key security processes such as achieving SOC 2 compliance.
To apply for this position, please fill out the form below:
Let’s work together to make justice smarter, swifter, and fairer.