Software Engineer / Senior Software Engineer

Position: Software Engineer / Senior Software Engineer (3–7 years) Location: Chennai, India (Hybrid) or Remote Type: Full-time Experience: 3–7 years About Athena Infonomics Athena Infonomics is a global impact solutions group that applies social science research, data analytics, and technology to advance international development. For over 15 years, we’ve partnered with major global institutions including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, FCDO, US State Department, and leading INGOs to build digital tools, platforms, and data systems that drive evidence-based decision-making. We operate across India, the US, the UK, Kenya, and program hubs spanning Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. We’re expanding our technology practice — building reusable platforms, integrating AI into our solution delivery, and growing the engineering team that makes it all happen. The Role You are an engineer with 3–7 years of experience who brings not just technical depth but genuine ownership, vision, and the drive to shape how things are built. You will work closely with the Engineering Manager / Tech Lead on active client engagements — designing and delivering modules end-to-end, integrating AI-powered capabilities, and contributing to technical decisions that matter. This is not a ticket-and-close role. You are expected to independently own full modules from architecture to deployment, proactively identify problems before they escalate, bring AI fluency to every engagement, and show the kind of leadership character that grows into a senior or tech lead position. You will be held to a high bar — not someday, but from day one. What You Will Own Feature Development & End-to-End Delivery Own modules and feature sets independently — from reading the requirement to architecting the solution, writing production code, handling QA, and deploying to a live environment. Build and maintain backend services, frontend interfaces, and integrations that are clean, tested, and ready to hand over to a client. Translate technical specifications — and sometimes ambiguous client inputs — into clear implementation plans before writing a single line of code. Meet sprint commitments without being chased. Flag blockers early, propose solutions, and close the loop. Contribute to identifying reusable components and patterns across engagements to reduce delivery time. AI Integration & Applied Intelligence Bring working knowledge of LLM integration patterns — RAG, embeddings, prompt engineering, API orchestration — into real client solutions. Implement and iterate on AI-powered features: automated reporting, NLP workflows, intelligent data extraction, and decision-support tools. Evaluate AI output quality, design feedback loops, and make pragmatic decisions about build-vs-API for AI capabilities. Stay current on the AI/ML landscape. Come in with opinions. Push the team’s thinking on what’s possible. Code Quality & Engineering…