Entry Level Scientific Software Developer Jobs in California

We are looking to add new talent to our growing team! We are currently seeking a Staff Software Developer to work in a technical support role with highly skilled professionals on diverse project teams in a dynamic environment. This is an excellent opportunity to join a growing group and company and get involved in a variety of projects for a diverse range of clients. This is a full-time position located in our San Diego, CA office.

In this role, the selected candidate will support the development of AI-enabled knowledge management, decision-support, and technology transfer platforms for environmental and engineering applications. The candidate will help build and maintain software systems that ingest and organize technical documents, generate embeddings, support retrieval-augmented generation workflows, connect to large language models, and deliver source-cited answers through secure web-based user interfaces. Initial work may include developing platforms that allow users to retrieve authoritative, context-specific answers from technical reports, guidance documents, project deliverables, multimedia files, and other materials using natural language queries. The role may also support development of transferable AI skill libraries, structured instructions, scripts, and training resources that help practitioners apply general-purpose AI tools.

This is an early-career role for a candidate with strongsoftware development aptitude, demonstrated project work, and curiosity aboutapplying AI to real-world environmental and engineering problems. Professionalexperience is preferred but not required; however, candidates must submit aGitHub portfolio or equivalent public code portfolio. School, research,open-source, and hobby projects are welcome. This position is based in SanDiego, CA and requires hybrid in-office work a minimum of three days per week.Remote candidates will not be considered.
DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES
In this position, you will:

• Assist with the design, development, testing, and maintenance of software applications that support AI-enabled knowledge management and decision-support platforms.
• Develop and maintain data ingestion workflows for technical documents, tables, images, audio, video, and other structured or unstructured data sources.
• Support implementation of retrieval-augmented generation workflows, including document chunking, metadata handling, vector embeddings, semantic search, and citation-enabled response generation.
• Build and maintain backend services, APIs, databases, and data processing pipelines to support reliable platform operations.
• Help develop secure web-based user interfaces for natural-language querying, citation display, file access, user feedback, and administrative workflows.
• Work with cloud-based services, databases, and storage systems, including Azure AI Search, Azure Blob Storage, PostgreSQL, and related tools.
• Write clean, maintainable, well-documented code using version control and collaborative software development practices.
• Develop tests and participate in quality assurance/quality control activities to verify pipeline reliability, system performance, and response accuracy.
• Collaborate with engineers, scientists, project managers, and AI specialists to translate technical project needs into practical software features.
• Support development of reusable AI workflows, skill libraries, prompt templates, scripts, and training resources for environmental technology transfer.
• Participate in user testing, pilot demonstrations, troubleshooting, and iterative product improvement.
• Perform all work in accordance with company and client health and safety protocols.
• Demonstrate the company's foundational safety behaviors.

SKILLS/EXPERIENCE
Minimum Skills and Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Data Science, Software Engineering, Civil Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Demonstrated software development project portfolio required; candidates must provide a GitHub portfolio or equivalent public code portfolio. School, research, open-source, and hobby projects are welcome.
• Professional software development experience preferred but not required.
• Strong programming ability in Python and/or another modern programming language.
• Familiarity with software development fundamentals, including data structures, APIs, databases, testing, debugging, and version control.
• Experience using Git and GitHub or similar version control platforms.
• Ability to learn new technologies quickly and apply them to practical project needs.
• Interest in artificial intelligence, large language models, data pipelines, web applications, and applied technical problem solving.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, written communication, and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams, including software developers, engineers, scientists, and project managers.
• Ability to work from the San Diego, CA office a minimum of three days per week; this is not a remote position.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future visa sponsorship.

Preferred Skills:

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Data Science, Software Engineering, Civil Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Experience with Python-based data pipelines, automation scripts, or backend services.
• Experience with JavaScript, TypeScript, React, or similar web development frameworks.
• Familiarity with large language models, LLM APIs, prompt engineering, AI agents, or retrieval-augmented generation.
• Familiarity with embeddings, vector databases, semantic search, hybrid search, or citation-enabled AI applications.
• Experience with Azure services, such as Azure AI Search, Azure Blob Storage, Azure AI Content Understanding, Azure OpenAI, or cloud-hosted PostgreSQL.
• Experience with SQL, PostgreSQL, or relational database design.
• Familiarity with Docker, CI/CD, automated testing, or cloud deployment workflows.
• Interest in environmental consulting, civil engineering, environmental engineering, remediation, or technology transfer applications.
• Experience developing technical documentation, user guides, or training materials for software tools.

The salary range for this position in San Diego, CA is 75,379.50 - 85,280.00 annually. Actual compensation will be based upon a variety of factors such as education, related work experience, certificates, skills, and current market conditions. Haley & Aldrich reviews salary ranges each quarter to assess competitiveness with the market.