Sr API Engineer

What You Need To Know

Open the door to a groundbreaking tech career with an industry leader. Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits is North America's preeminent wine and spirits distributor, as well as a family-owned, privately held company with a 50+ year legacy of success. To create a new era in alcohol beverage sales and service, we're heavily invested in the most transformative new technologies - and the most brilliant tech professionals. Southern Glazer's was named by Newsweek as a Most Loved Workplace and is included on the Forbes lists for Largest Private Companies and Best Employers for Diversity.

As a full-time employee, you can choose from a full menu of our Top Shelf Benefits, including comprehensive medical and prescription drug coverage, dental and vision plans, tax-saving Flexible Spending Accounts, disability coverage, life insurance plans, and a 401(k) plan. We also offer tuition reimbursement, a wellness program, parental leave, vacation accrual, paid sick leave, and more.

We offer continuous learning and career growth in a fast-paced environment where you are respected, your voice is heard, and technology is part of our strategy for success. If you're looking to fill your glass with opportunity, come join our FAMILY.

Overview

This role reports under the Director of Product Operations (Product Ops) AI/ML and is part of the team responsible for developing scalable APIs and AI-driven integrations. The Senior API Engineer will design, develop, and maintain RESTful and GraphQL APIs, integrate with data platforms like Databricks, deploy services on AWS and Kubernetes, and implement secure authentication methods. They will optimize database interactions, develop CI/CD pipelines, and monitor API performance. The role involves working on AI/ML APIs, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and supporting AI/ML initiatives within the product operations framework. Candidates should have at least 3 years of experience in API development, cloud architectures, databases, and AI/ML integrations, with additional expertise in streaming and federation being beneficial.

Primary Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable RESTful APIs and GraphQL APIs using modern frameworks and best practices.
• Develop backend services using Node.js (Express/Nest.js), FastAPI (Python-based services), Ariadne (GraphQL APIs), and Golang (Streaming services).
• Integrate with Databricks to expose and manage OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) workloads, enabling API-driven data querying and analytics at scale.
• Architect APIs following metadata-driven design principles, ensuring that data can be dynamically exposed to users inside or outside the system while maintaining dynamic authentication mechanisms.
• Deploy and scale API services using AWS Lambda, Kubernetes (EKS), and AWS Bedrock for serverless and microservices-based architectures.
• Implement authentication and authorization best practices (OAuth2, JWT, API Gateway) while supporting dynamic authentication models based on user roles and access control.
• Design and optimize database interactions using SQL/NoSQL databases (MongoDB, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB).
• Develop CI/CD pipelines for automated API deployment using AWS services (CodePipeline, Bedrock, CloudFormation).
• Monitor and improve API performance, logging, and error handling using Prometheus, Grafana, and ELK stack.
• Work on AI-driven API integrations including Recommender Systems, LLM-based AI Agents, and AI-powered Image & Video Processing workflows.
• Collaborate with front-end engineers, data scientists, and DevOps teams to ensure seamless API integration and scalable deployments.

Minimum Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in API development with GraphQL (Ariadne) and RESTful services.
• BS or MS degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field
• Strong hands-on experience with Node.js (Express/Nest.js), FastAPI (Python), and Golang.
• Proficiency in API design principles, focusing on metadata-driven frameworks that allow dynamic data exposure with adaptable authentication models.
• Experience with AWS Lambda, AWS Bedrock, and Kubernetes (EKS) for serverless and microservices architectures.
• Hands-on experience designing scalable and modular API architectures.
• Expertise in OAuth2, JWT, API Gateway, and dynamic authentication mechanisms.
• Strong knowledge of OLAP workloads and Databricks integration for API-driven data analytics.
• Experience with SQL/NoSQL databases (MongoDB, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB).
• CI/CD automation expertise (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, AWS CodePipeline).
• Proficiency in API testing frameworks (Postman, Newman, Jest, Mocha, PyTest).
• Strong debugging, logging, and monitoring skills (Grafana, Prometheus, ELK stack)

Nice to Have

• Experience with GraphQL federation and Apollo Server.
• Knowledge of AI/ML APIs and LLM-based chatbot APIs (OpenAI, Hugging Face, LangChain).
• Experience with streaming technologies (Kafka, WebSockets, Golang-based streaming).
• Prior work with AI-powered data mapping, recommender systems, and real-time processing APIs.

Physical Demands

• Physical demands include a considerable amount of time sitting and typing/keyboarding, using a computer (e.g., keyboard, mouse, and monitor), or adding machine
• Physical demands with activity or condition may include walking, bending, reaching, standing, squatting, and stooping
• May require occasional lifting/lowering, pushing, carrying, or pulling up to 20lbs

EEO Statement

Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits, an Affirmative Action/EEO employer, prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type and provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. SGWS complies with all federal, state and local laws concerning consideration of a qualified applicant's arrest and/or criminal conviction records. Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits provides competitive compensation based on estimated performance level consistent with the past relevant experience, knowledge, skills, abilities and education of employees. Unless otherwise expressly stated, any pay ranges posted here are estimates from outside of Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits and do not reflect Southern Glazer's pay bands or ranges.