Principal Python Engineer

Cognee is building the memory engine + data plane for AI agents to plan, reason, and act. Our open-source Python SDK is in production at 70+ companies, hit GitHub Trending, and runs 550,000+ times per month. We've won early customers (including top-10 Pharma) and recently raised a large Seed.

We are looking for a Principal Engineer / Lead for the Python SDK to own the technical vision, architecture, and execution of Cognee's primary developer interface. This role is critical: the Python SDK is the product for most users. You will set the standard for SDK quality, ergonomics, performance, and long-term maintainability, while working closely with platform, infra, and product teams to ensure Cognee feels world-class for developers.

What You Will Build

SDK Architecture & Technical VisionDefine and own the long-term architecture of the Cognee Python SDK, ensuring clarity, extensibility, and stability as usage scales.

Developer Experience at ScaleDesign APIs that feel intuitive, composable, and hard to misuse—serving both early-stage startups and large enterprises.

Performance & ReliabilityOptimize SDK performance for high-throughput workloads, large memory graphs, and production AI agent systems.

API & Abstraction DesignDecide what belongs in the SDK vs the platform. Build clean abstractions over complex systems (vector stores, graphs, memory lifecycle).

Open-Source LeadershipAct as the technical steward of the open-source SDK: reviews, RFCs, contribution guidelines, and community standards.

Cross-Team Technical LeadershipWork closely with platform, infra, and DevRel to ensure the SDK cleanly integrates with control plane, databases, and deployment models.

Quality & Engineering ExcellenceEstablish best practices around testing, versioning, backwards compatibility, documentation, and release processes.

Requirements

Principal-Level EngineeringExperience 8+ years of software engineering experience, with clear ownership of critical systems or developer-facing platforms.

Deep Python ExpertiseMastery of Python, including async patterns, packaging, typing, performance optimization, and SDK design best practices.

SDK / API DesignTrack Record Proven experience building and maintaining widely-used SDKs, libraries, or developer platforms.

Distributed Systems UnderstandingStrong intuition for how SDKs interact with distributed backends, databases, and cloud infrastructure.

AI / Data Systems FamiliarityExperience with LLMs, vector databases, graph systems, or data-intensive applications. Technical Leadership Comfortable making high-impact architectural decisions and mentoring senior engineers without heavy management overhead.

Open-Source ExperiencePrior experience maintaining or leading open-source projects used by external developers. Nice to Have Experience with agent frameworks, vector search, or graph databases Background in developer tools, infra, or platform engineering

Strong opinions about APIergonomics and DX (and the ability to defend them) Experience scaling open-source projects with large external contributor bases

Benefits

Top-of-market compensation + meaningful equity

Ownership over a core, business-critical product surface

Direct access to founders and real influence on product direction High autonomy, low bureaucracy, high trust

Opportunity to define the de facto memory SDK for AI agents