Software Engineering Manager, Backend Development (Python)

About the Role:

Grade Level (for internal use):

03

Who We Are

Kensho is S&P Global’s hub for AI innovation and transformation . 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 Generative AI, LLM Agents, speech recognition, entity linking, document extraction, text classification, natural language processing, and more.

At Kensho, we hire talented people and give them the autonomy and support needed to build amazing technology and products. We collaborate using our teammates' diverse perspectives to solve hard problems. Our communication with one another is open, honest, and efficient. We dedicate time and resources to explore new ideas, but always rooted in engineering best practices. As a result, we can innovate rapidly to produce technology that is scalable, robust, and useful.

About The Team

Kensho’s Applications group builds the applications, backend services, and APIs that deliver Kensho’s AI capabilities to customers. Our teams are small, product-focused, and committed to shipping reliable, well-architected systems that scale. We work closely with Machine Learning, Product, and Infrastructure teams to turn advanced AI technology into high-quality, production-ready software.

The Applications group provides the core services, orchestration layers, and API frameworks that make Kensho’s AI products fast, dependable, and easy to integrate. We value engineers who bring strong technical judgment, curiosity, and a commitment to building backend systems that enable robust, high-impact AI applications.

You can read about some of our cutting-edge GenAI applications at:

S&P Global and Anthropic Announce Collaboration to Bring Trusted Financial Data into Claude

S&P Global Data Retrieval Agent for Gemini Enterprise | Google Cloud AI agent finder

About The Role

As a Backend Engineering Manager, you will lead a team of Software Engineers developing Kensho’s GenAI platform, LLM-powered applications, and foundational AI toolkits like Kensho Link or NERD . You will facilitate the development of reliable, secure, and performant APIs that apply Kensho’s AI capabilities to specific customer workflows.

Your responsibilities span deep technical leadership, people management, and cross-functional collaboration. You will ensure your team is productive, supported, and delivering high-impact Backend developing systems that align with product and business goals. While your primary focus is enabling your team’s success, you will remain close enough to the technical work to make informed decisions, mentor effectively, and contribute where your expertise adds value.

What We Are Looking For-

Overall 8+ years of experience , with at least 4+ years of hands-on experience in developing customer-facing APIs within a team

At least 3 years of experience developing production-grade software and leading remote or multi-site teams of 3-4+ engineers

Experience developing RESTful APIs using a variety of tools

Strong understanding of distributed system concepts , concurrency , and event-driven architectures

Experience building and scaling high-volume, low-latency backend services

Sound reasoning about the behaviour and performance of loosely coupled systems

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

Experience with CI/CD practices and tools to streamline deployment processes

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

Experience deploying and operating backend systems on a major cloud platform ( AWS preferred )

Experience working across all stages of the software development lifecycle

Thoughtful and efficient communication skills (both verbal and written)

Experience using quantitative and qualitative measures to assess and improve the health of teams and projects

Experience providing ongoing technical and interpersonal coaching and performance management to a diverse set of engineer

Experience turning abstract business requirements into concrete technical plans

What You'll Do

Lead High-Quality Backend Delivery: Guide the design, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance of backend services and APIs that power Kensho’s AI applications, ensuring reliability, security, and performance.

Develop Retrieval & Orchestration Systems: Oversee the architecture and implementation of retrieval and orchestration services that integrate with ML systems and enable grounded, verifiable GenAI outputs.

Drive Performance & Operational Excellence: Set standards for diagnosing and resolving latency, throughput, and scalability issues. Ensure strong monitoring, logging, alerting, and instrumentation practices.

Strengthen System Architecture: Shape the architectural roadmap for backend foundations supporting both the GenAI platform and ML toolkits such as Link and NERD. Review and approve designs that improve clarity, maintainability, and reliability.

Ensure Security & Compliance: Maintain rigorous API security, authentication, authorization, and data-privacy practices aligned with Kensho and S&P Global requirements.

Improve Reliability & Manage Technical Debt: Establish processes for identifying technical debt, improving code quality, and enhancing fault tolerance. Contribute individually where needed.

Develop Engineering Talent: Coach, mentor, and grow engineers through ongoing feedback, clear expectations, and structured development plans.

Manage Priorities & Delivery: Coordinate multiple project streams, deadlines, and deliverables. Allocate engineering capacity across existing commitments and new initiatives.

Collaborate Across Teams: Partner proactively with Product, ML, Design, and Infrastructure teams to align roadmaps, clarify requirements, and ensure effective cross-functional execution.

Support User Experience Through Backend Excellence: Ensure backend systems enable smooth, intuitive, and reliable experiences in customer-facing applications.

Foster Innovation & Experimentation: Encourage prototyping, instrumentation, and data-driven experimentation to validate ideas and drive platform improvements.

Model Kensho’s Culture & Values: Build a team environment grounded in inclusion, curiosity, transparency, empowerment, and excellence

Technology You'll Encounter:

Python, Flask, FastAPI, Django REST Framework

PostgreSQL, Celery, RabbitMQ, Redis, Kafka, OpenSearch

AWS, Docker & other orchestration tools, Sentry, Prometheus

Git, Jenkins, Github Actions, Jsonnet

Terraform, Grafana

What’s In It For You?

Our Mission:

Advancing Essential Intelligence.

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. Join us and help create the critical insights that truly make a difference.

• Our Values:
• Integrity, Discovery, Partnership

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