Central Data Platform Engineer - Software Dev Engineer I

It takes powerful technology to connect our brands and partners with an audience of hundreds of millions of people. Whether you’re looking to write mobile app code, engineer the servers behind our massive ad tech stacks, or develop algorithms to help us process trillions of data points a day, what you do here will have a huge impact on our business—and the world.

A Little About Us

Yahoo is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its advertising platform, Yahoo Native.

Yahoo builds, improves, and maintains one of the highest scaling platforms in the world. Their amazing team of engineers work on next-generation data platforms that transform how users connect every single day. Yahoo’s Central Data Platform drives some of the most demanding applications in the industry. The system handles billions of requests a day and runs on some of the largest Hadoop clusters ever built! 50,000 nodes strong and several multi-thousand node clusters bring scalable computing to a whole new level. They work on problems that cover a wide spectrum – from web services to operating systems and networking layers. Their biggest challenges ahead are designing efficient cloud-native data platforms.

About the Role

We’re looking for a motivated entry-level AI Engineer to join our AI & ML team in Champaign, Illinois, where you’ll have the opportunity to design and build scalable, high-performance tools in the areas of data governance, orchestration, and query technologies as part of the Central Data Platform Team. In this role, you will be instrumental in developing and deploying AI-powered features. Your responsibilities will include analyzing requirements, supporting prompt engineering and RAG workflows, and collaborating across product and engineering teams to integrate generative AI into production systems. Furthermore, this role contributes to delivering high-quality software and platform products that underpin Yahoo’s enterprise data ecosystem.

Responsibilities

• Assist in building AI features: use Python, LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.), vector embedding pipelines.

• Support prompt engineering and RAG workflows: design, test, iterate prompt templates, integrate vector search.

• Help build and maintain AI-model monitoring/observability dashboards: track model accuracy, latency, drift and work with backend engineers to integrate AI services into the product

• Participate in experimenting with AI workflows: multi-agent orchestration, model fine-tuning, system prompts.

• Working through documents and conversations with colleagues to understand product requirements for new features.

• Work closely with cross-functional teams to understand product and technical roadmaps, identifying potential impacts on system operability and proposing proactive solutions for Cloud environments.

• Lead initiatives to enhance and optimize existing cloud infrastructure, drive improvements in scalability, efficiency, and resilience, and oversee large-scale projects related to cloud platforms, automation, and performance optimization.

• Foster cross-functional collaboration between development, infrastructure, and operations teams to improve the overall performance, reliability, and security of services on cloud.

Requirements

• A solid Computer Science foundation in data structures and algorithms, object oriented programming, and modern software engineering practices from your achievement of obtaining a degree in CS or a similar engineering pursuit.

• Proactive in staying updated with evolving AI trends and new LLM releases.

• Skilled at diagnosing and solving complex, ambiguous problems with curiosity and a product-focused mindset.

• Experience working with the latest Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI advancements, cloud native AI services like Sagemaker, VertexAI,  LangChain, LlamaIndex, or other LLM-orchestration libraries.

• The ability to use an object oriented programming language like Java or C++ or scripting languages like Python or Perl, and Unix or Linux systems.

• Knowledge of SQL and distributed query engines (e.g., Presto, Trino, Athena, BigQuery). Familiarity with data concepts such as joins, aggregation, projection, and explosion.

• The ability to work with large-scale distributed systems.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to work effectively in a cross-functional, collaborative environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Working knowledge of AWS and GCP cloud environments, including core data and compute services (e.g., EMR, MWAA, S3, Lambda, ECS, BigQuery, Dataproc).

• Experience with data pipeline orchestration tools and frameworks such as Oozie and Airflow.

• Query Execution and Optimization: Designing and optimizing queries to run efficiently on platforms such as BigQuery, Hive, Pig, and Spark, ensuring high performance and scalability.

• Familiarity with modern data architectures, including lakehouse and Medallion design patterns.

• Understanding of data processing/data governance concepts

• Familiarity with AI-assisted engineering tools (e.g., Cursor, MCP, Copilot, agentic AI frameworks) and emerging AI/ML technologies that enhance data engineering productivity.

• Experience working with IaC (eg. Terraform, Ansible).

• Experience working with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools, such as Terraform, or CloudFormation, to automate and manage cloud infrastructure deployments and automations.

• Familiarity & working experience with Kubernetes and container-based orchestration.

The material job duties and responsibilities of this role include those listed above as well as adhering to Yahoo policies; exercising sound judgment; working effectively, safely and inclusively with others; exhibiting trustworthiness and meeting expectations; and safeguarding business operations and brand integrity.

At Yahoo, we offer flexible hybrid work options that our employees love! While most roles don’t require regular office attendance, you may occasionally be asked to attend in-person events or team sessions. You’ll always get notice to make arrangements. Your recruiter will let you know if a specific job requires regular attendance at a Yahoo office or facility. If you have any questions about how this applies to the role, just ask the recruiter!

Yahoo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or any other protected category. Yahoo will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law. Yahoo is dedicated to providing an accessible environment for all candidates during the application process and for employees during their employment. If you need accessibility assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability, please submit a request via the Accommodation Request Form (www.yahooinc.com/careers/contact-us.html) or call +1.866.772.3182. Requests and calls received for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

We believe that a diverse and inclusive workplace strengthens Yahoo and deepens our relationships. When you support everyone to be their best selves, they spark discovery, innovation and creativity. Among other efforts, our 11 employee resource groups (ERGs) enhance a culture of belonging with programs, events and fellowship that help educate, support and create a workplace where all feel welcome.

The compensation for this position ranges from $88,500.00 - $184,375.00/yr and will vary depending on factors such as your location, skills and experience.The compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of discretionary annual bonus or commissions. Our comprehensive benefits include healthcare, a great 401k, backup childcare, education stipends and much (much) more.

Currently work for Yahoo? Please apply on our internal career site.