What are the responsibilities and job description for the Staff Software Engineer position at Ontra?
About Ontra
Ontra is the leader in AI-powered solutions for the private markets. Powered by industry-leading AI, data from over 2 million contracts, and a global network of legal professionals, Ontra automates critical private market workflows across the fund lifecycle. Ontra’s solutions transform unstructured data trapped in static documents into actionable intelligence, enabling firms to accelerate contracts, streamline compliance, and automate entity management. Trusted by more than 1,000 global GPs, investment banks, law firms, and advisors – including nine of the top ten PEI-ranked firms worldwide – Ontra helps firms focus on what’s important.
Our Culture
Ontra is a remote-first company that values the power of connection. We find innovative ways to stay connected, both virtually and in person. By promoting ownership, inspiring creativity, and championing collaboration, Ontra enables you to shape your impact and growth. Our commitment to innovation extends beyond our technology; it’s embedded in our culture, and AI plays a crucial role in everything we do.
Our culture is one where belonging is the cornerstone of every interaction, rooted in acceptance and respect for all. Our commitment to inclusion begins at the application process, ensuring a fair and equitable hiring experience that values the unique contributions you bring from day one.
About The Role
Ontra is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to work on our innovative purpose-built AI solutions. Contract negotiations once required hours of manual markup. Hundreds of pages of fund documents hide critical obligations in dense legal language. Unstructured legal text needs to become clean, actionable data before it can drive any real decisions.
At Ontra, that's the work. You'll build AI-powered features that automatically mark up contracts during negotiations, extract obligations buried in complex fund documents, and transform messy legal text into structured data that some of the world's largest investment firms rely on to run their business.
This role is a great opportunity for someone who is passionate about tackling complex technical challenges, architecting robust and scalable systems, and collaborating with cross-functional teams. This position is ideal for those who enjoy driving project direction and fostering an environment of continuous improvement. We're looking for someone who combines deep technical skill with strong product instincts. You'll partner closely with product and design to shape what we build, not just how.
You’ll have hands-on experience building with AI and LLMs in production, and should be able to define evaluation frameworks, reason about failure modes, and make strategic calls about where AI creates genuine value in our products, and where it doesn't.
If you want to do the best work of your career at a company and want to contribute to a culture of learning and growth, we’d love to get to know you!
What You’ll Do
Ontra takes individual candidate location, experience, and skills into consideration when determining compensation. The base pay range is listed below. Some positions may be eligible for additional compensation, such as commission, variable compensation, profits interest units, or other equity-based compensation, which are not included in the below base pay range.
If you are selected to participate in our interview process, your Talent Acquisition Partner will share more details about the total compensation package for the role.
Hiring Locations
We currently hire exclusively in the locations listed below. Select jobs may have more specific location requirements due to business needs.
United States
Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington
APAC
Hong Kong
EMEA
United Kingdom
Benefits Snapshot
Occasional travel is required for Ontra employees, including typically at least twice per year to attend team and larger group off-sites for in-person collaboration. For some roles, additional travel may be required based on the requirements of the role and business need.
Inclusivity
Ontra is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Ontra will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact people@ontra.ai.
Personnel Privacy Notice: View here.
Note on Employment Verification: All employees hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in their particular location.
Note to External Agencies: We are not accepting any blind submissions or resumes/CVs from recruitment agencies. Any candidates sent to Ontra will NOT be accepted or considered as a submission without a signed agreement in place.
Compensation Range: $270K - $378K
Ontra is the leader in AI-powered solutions for the private markets. Powered by industry-leading AI, data from over 2 million contracts, and a global network of legal professionals, Ontra automates critical private market workflows across the fund lifecycle. Ontra’s solutions transform unstructured data trapped in static documents into actionable intelligence, enabling firms to accelerate contracts, streamline compliance, and automate entity management. Trusted by more than 1,000 global GPs, investment banks, law firms, and advisors – including nine of the top ten PEI-ranked firms worldwide – Ontra helps firms focus on what’s important.
Our Culture
Ontra is a remote-first company that values the power of connection. We find innovative ways to stay connected, both virtually and in person. By promoting ownership, inspiring creativity, and championing collaboration, Ontra enables you to shape your impact and growth. Our commitment to innovation extends beyond our technology; it’s embedded in our culture, and AI plays a crucial role in everything we do.
Our culture is one where belonging is the cornerstone of every interaction, rooted in acceptance and respect for all. Our commitment to inclusion begins at the application process, ensuring a fair and equitable hiring experience that values the unique contributions you bring from day one.
About The Role
Ontra is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to work on our innovative purpose-built AI solutions. Contract negotiations once required hours of manual markup. Hundreds of pages of fund documents hide critical obligations in dense legal language. Unstructured legal text needs to become clean, actionable data before it can drive any real decisions.
At Ontra, that's the work. You'll build AI-powered features that automatically mark up contracts during negotiations, extract obligations buried in complex fund documents, and transform messy legal text into structured data that some of the world's largest investment firms rely on to run their business.
This role is a great opportunity for someone who is passionate about tackling complex technical challenges, architecting robust and scalable systems, and collaborating with cross-functional teams. This position is ideal for those who enjoy driving project direction and fostering an environment of continuous improvement. We're looking for someone who combines deep technical skill with strong product instincts. You'll partner closely with product and design to shape what we build, not just how.
You’ll have hands-on experience building with AI and LLMs in production, and should be able to define evaluation frameworks, reason about failure modes, and make strategic calls about where AI creates genuine value in our products, and where it doesn't.
If you want to do the best work of your career at a company and want to contribute to a culture of learning and growth, we’d love to get to know you!
What You’ll Do
- Architect and Deliver: Set technical direction across product areas, making architectural decisions that balance near-term shipping with long-term scalability.
- Own Outcomes Across Teams: Identify the highest-leverage problems, ensure the right things get built in the right order, and drive initiatives from ambiguous problem statements through to production.
- Raise the Engineering Bar: Establish patterns, improve tooling, fix systemic quality issues, and use code reviews to level up other engineers.
- Shape Product Direction: Partner with product and design as a technical thought partner. Bring engineering insight into what's possible, what's costly, and where technical investment unlocks new value.
- Expertise: 10 years in software engineering with experience in MVC frameworks
- Results-driven approach: Proven experience delivering features and solutions that have a direct impact on revenue growth, savings, or operational efficiencies.
- Problem Solving Skills: Ability to tackle complex technical problems with creativity and efficiency.
- Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication across technical and non-technical team members and stakeholders.
- LLM Familiarity: Proficiency with coding assistant LLMs such as Cursor or Claude Code. Experience in integrating LLMs into products for data extraction and summarization to solve business needs is a strong plus.
Ontra takes individual candidate location, experience, and skills into consideration when determining compensation. The base pay range is listed below. Some positions may be eligible for additional compensation, such as commission, variable compensation, profits interest units, or other equity-based compensation, which are not included in the below base pay range.
If you are selected to participate in our interview process, your Talent Acquisition Partner will share more details about the total compensation package for the role.
Hiring Locations
We currently hire exclusively in the locations listed below. Select jobs may have more specific location requirements due to business needs.
United States
Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington
APAC
Hong Kong
EMEA
United Kingdom
Benefits Snapshot
- Remote-first working policy, with office hubs in NYC, Santa Barbara, and London
- Twice yearly team offsites for in-person collaboration
- Paid flexible time off policy
- Paid parental leave and benefits
- Employer-supported retirement contributions, varying by country
- Monthly phone and internet reimbursement
- Company-sponsored LinkedIn Learning accounts, department budgets for professional development, and robust onboarding program
- Various options for medical, dental, and vision insurance
Occasional travel is required for Ontra employees, including typically at least twice per year to attend team and larger group off-sites for in-person collaboration. For some roles, additional travel may be required based on the requirements of the role and business need.
Inclusivity
Ontra is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Ontra will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact people@ontra.ai.
Personnel Privacy Notice: View here.
Note on Employment Verification: All employees hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in their particular location.
Note to External Agencies: We are not accepting any blind submissions or resumes/CVs from recruitment agencies. Any candidates sent to Ontra will NOT be accepted or considered as a submission without a signed agreement in place.
Compensation Range: $270K - $378K
Salary : $270,000 - $378,000