Software Engineer, APIs & Context Platform

Details

About Glean

Glean is the Work AI platform that helps everyone work smarter with AI. What began as the industry’s most advanced enterprise search has evolved into a full-scale Work AI ecosystem, powering intelligent Search, an AI Assistant, and scalable AI agents on one secure, open platform.

About the Role

Glean is building the horizontal AI platform that powers how employees use AI at work—not just in Glean, but across tools like Copilot, Gemini, ChatGPT, IDEs, and more. This team owns the platform experience end-to-end: standards and tooling for REST APIs, SDKs and client libraries, agent SDKs and integrations, MCP servers, custom context such as code and memory, and the infrastructure and docs that make it easy to build on Glean.

In a rapidly growing startup, this means working across multiple layers of the stack—backend services, developer tools, SDKs, and docs.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve Glean's REST API standards: versioning strategy, backward-compatibility guarantees, deprecation policy, and OpenAPI specification tooling.
• Design and ship new API endpoints that expose Glean's platform primitives—search, knowledge graph, chat, agent and others—as stable, well-documented developer surfaces.
• Build the API gateway layer: routing, authentication (OAuth2, API keys, OIDC), rate limiting, quota management, and per-tenant usage metering.
• Define reusable platform primitives on top of Glean's horizontal layers (connectors, security/governance, knowledge graph, memory, model orchestration) so they can be composed by internal teams and external partners.
• Work across backend services, developer tools, SDKs, and documentation in a fast-moving startup environment.
• Design, build, and evolve SDKs and client libraries that developers use to integrate with Glean from their own applications and agent frameworks.
• Instrument API usage to surface adoption metrics, error patterns, and latency SLOs.
• Champion the external developer perspective internally—bring customer feedback, friction points, and feature requests into the roadmap process.

Requirements

• BA/BS in computer science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of industry software engineering experience, with meaningful time spent building and shipping public-facing APIs or developer platforms in production.
• Deep fluency in REST API design principles: versioning, backward compatibility, pagination, error semantics, hypermedia, and OpenAPI/JSON Schema.
• Proficiency in at least one modern backend language (ideally Golang, or strong interest in learning it); experience with TypeScript, Python, and/or Java is a plus.
• Thrive in a customer-focused, tight-knit, cross-functional environment—being a team player and willing to take on whatever is most impactful for the company is a must.
• A proactive and positive attitude to lead, learn, troubleshoot, and take ownership of both small tasks and large features.

Location & Work Model

• This role is hybrid (4 days a week in our Mountain View office).

Compensation & Benefits

• The standard base salary range for this position is $210,000 - $300,000 annually.
• Compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.
• Certain roles may be eligible for variable compensation, equity, and benefits.
• Comprehensive benefits package including Medical, Vision, and Dental coverage, generous time-off policy, and opportunity to contribute to a 401k plan.
• Home office improvement stipend, as well as an annual education and wellness stipends.
• Regular events and healthy lunches daily.

AI-First Mindset at Glean

As part of the interview process, you'll complete a brief AI-focused exercise or discussion so we can understand how you think about, design, and use AI to drive impact in your role.