Software Development Engineer

HackerRank helps thousands of companies like OpenAI, NVIDIA, Amazon hire developers based on their skills vs pedigree, and also nurtures a community of millions of developers to upskill themselves to become the next-gen developers.

The people at HackerRank care deeply about their work and have an extremely intense work ethic. In many companies, speed & quality is a tradeoff. At HackerRank, it’s not -- we expect you to ship in about half the time that most competent people think it’s possible while maintaining a standard of quality you’d proudly sign your name on. The only way to make this happen is if you truly love your craft and are deeply committed to growth.

🌌 Join HackerRank’s Astra Team: Engineering the Future of AI for Developers

About Astra

Astra is HackerRank’s newest frontier, a data and benchmarking platform powering the next generation of AI coding models. We are transforming HackerRank’s decade of developer expertise into curated datasets, automated benchmarks, and human-in-the-loop evaluation systems that help leading AI labs train and measure their models.

Astra sits at the intersection of software engineering, data infrastructure, and AI research, where you will build the foundation for a product that makes AI better at coding.

Why this role matters

AI models can now write code, but teaching them to code well requires real developer data and rigorous evaluation systems. Astra’s mission is to supply that intelligence to the world’s top labs and enterprises.

As a Software Engineer on Astra, you will:

• Build high-scale data and benchmarking pipelines that turn developer interactions into structured training data.
• Design APIs and systems for code dataset creation, evaluation, and delivery.
• Work closely with ML scientists and data experts to create the tools that fuel reinforcement learning environments and model fine-tuning.
• Contribute to Astra Arena, our next-generation DPO-style evaluation platform for LLMs in software engineering.

What you'll work on

• Automated task creation and evaluation systems (expanding SWE-Bench and internal tooling).
• Data APIs that expose curated coding datasets to customers and model labs.
• Annotation and feedback tooling for human-in-the-loop benchmarking.
• Experimental RL "gyms" for code generation models, built on real developer workflows.

What we're looking for 

• Strong software engineering fundamentals, with full-stack or backend experience.
• Background in distributed systems, data processing, or ML infrastructure.
• Interest in AI, coding models, or human-in-the-loop systems.
• Comfort operating in early-stage environments where ambiguity is common and ownership is broad.
• Bonus: contributions to open-source AI frameworks or developer platforms

Why join

• Shape the foundation of a new business that connects AI and developer intelligence
• Collaborate with a tight-knit team of engineers, researchers, and data experts.
• Build technology that powers AI model evaluation and training for top global labs.
• Competitive compensation and meaningful equity in a high-growth business line

*You will help teach AI how to code by building the data and systems that make it possible.

Compensation

• Base salary range: $210,000 – $246,000.
• This range doesn’t include bonuses, stock options, or benefits for which you will be eligible.
• Final offer may vary based on skills, experience, location, and other compensation components. 

Want to learn more about HackerRank? Check out HackerRank.com to explore our products, solutions and resources, and dive into our story and mission here.

HackerRank is a proud equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer. We provide equal opportunity to everyone for employment based on individual performance and qualification. We never discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital, veteran, or disability status. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines. 

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