Software Engineer, Data & ML Infrastructure

About the Company

Surgeon Decision Intelligence (SDI) develops AI-driven medical imaging solutions for orthopedic care. Founded by orthopedic spine surgeons and medical students from the Hospital for Special Surgery, SDI aims to improve patient care by developing quantitative imaging biomarkers that help inform treatment decisions and predict outcomes across a range of musculoskeletal diseases.

The company combines computer vision, medical image analysis, and machine learning to identify insights from MRI scans and help translate new imaging biomarkers from research into clinical practice. SDI works closely with clinicians, surgeons, and research partners to support accuracy, interpretability, and reproducibility.

About the Role

Surgeon Decision Intelligence is hiring a Software Engineer, Data & ML Infrastructure to build and maintain the data systems and engineering infrastructure behind its AI/ML platform. Working directly with the Senior AI/ML Engineer, you will support the PostgreSQL clinical and imaging database, cloud storage for medical imaging studies, internal APIs, and the development tools and CI/CD pipelines that keep the codebase reliable and reproducible.

This is a hands-on software engineering position focused on production systems rather than research. You will write production-quality Python, manage database migrations, develop data-quality tools, improve legacy codebases, and build services used by the machine learning and clinical teams. The role offers an opportunity to work with medical imaging and applied machine learning in a regulated healthcare environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the PostgreSQL database layer, including schema changes, SQLAlchemy ORM models, Alembic migrations, and data-integrity constraints.
• Build and maintain data ingestion, validation, and ETL pipelines for clinical outcomes data and DICOM medical imaging metadata.
• Contribute to internal FastAPI services, including endpoints for imaging metadata, annotations, and access control.
• Support Azure cloud infrastructure, including blob storage for imaging studies, containerized service deployments, and authentication and authorization workflows.
• Migrate legacy research code into versioned, dependency-managed Python packages that follow team engineering standards.
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines, automated tests, and developer tools that support reliable and reproducible software.
• Build tools for machine learning workflows, including dataset extraction and export, experiment and artifact tracking support, and data provenance.
• Participate in code reviews and contribute to engineering standards and technical documentation.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• At least 3 years of professional software development experience using Python.
• Solid working knowledge of SQL and relational databases, preferably PostgreSQL, including schema design and query optimization.
• Experience with data and ML infrastructure, such as data pipelines, feature stores, model deployment, containerization, or orchestration frameworks.
• Experience with cloud-based ML pipelines, preferably Azure, and infrastructure-as-code tools.
• Proficiency with Git and collaborative development practices, including branching, pull requests, and code reviews.
• Experience with software development lifecycle practices, including version control, testing, CI/CD, and collaborative workflows.
• Ability to write production-quality, tested, and documented code using type hints and modern Python packaging practices.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work effectively in a small, fast-moving team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with ORMs and database migration tools, such as SQLAlchemy and Alembic.
• Experience building REST APIs using FastAPI or a similar Python web framework.
• Experience with Azure services, including blob storage, Container Apps, or Entra ID, or experience with another major cloud platform.
• Familiarity with Docker and CI/CD systems such as GitHub Actions.
• Experience with healthcare data, including DICOM, medical imaging pipelines, clinical registries, or EHR-derived datasets.
• Understanding of HIPAA requirements and the handling of protected health information (PHI) in production systems.
• Familiarity with ML engineering tools such as MLflow, model and data versioning, and infrastructure supporting machine learning teams.
• Experience with Python dependency management tools such as uv or Poetry and publishing internal packages.
• Experience improving or restructuring legacy codebases.
• Familiarity with software quality practices for regulated medical software, including requirements traceability, validation, configuration management, and controlled releases.
• Experience with orchestration or workflow systems for data and ML pipelines, particularly Databricks.

Why Join Surgeon Decision Intelligence?

• Contribute to technology designed to improve the clinical management of musculoskeletal health and disease.
• Work with a multidisciplinary team of engineers and clinicians.
• Develop your skills while contributing to a growing startup focused on medical AI.

Location and Work Arrangement

• The position is temporarily remote within the United States, with the expectation of transitioning to in-person work in New York City in approximately six months.

Employment Type

• Full-time.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary: $140,000–$175,000, depending on experience.
• Equity and benefits are included, with compensation commensurate with experience.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Surgeon Decision Intelligence provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants. The company prohibits discrimination and harassment based on race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the role.