Lead Software Engineer

About CORTO We are CORTO, a cutting-edge software company dedicated to revolutionising the legal industry. Our mission is to empower legal practitioners with AI-driven solutions that streamline their workflow, boost productivity, and provide more efficient client service. Our team of AI experts and engineers collaborate to develop intelligent software tailored to the unique needs of lawyers, paralegals, and legal assistants. Our innovative AI solutions automate routine tasks, simplify document management, and enhance decision-making, allowing legal professionals to focus on what they do best—providing expert legal counsel. We're rapidly scaling from 80 to 250+ employees, with a highly technical workforce where around 75% of the team are developers and engineers. Working alongside our Sydney-based team of passionate high achievers, you'll join a fast-growing technology business where things rarely stay the same for long - and if you're smart, caring, and ambitious, you'll be in great company.  The Opportunity We are building a new AI-driven product that will become foundational to our platform, helping lawyers and related professionals get high-quality outcomes safely, with AI seamlessly embedded in their workflow. There is a clear product vision and a well-defined problem. The build is yours to lead. What makes it hard, and interesting, is the operating environment. The product holds confidential material for many firms at once, so it has to be safe by construction. Isolation, access control and auditability are not features to be added later, they are the shape of the thing from the first commit. The first build is deliberately focused, and it will not be the last. It is small enough that one person can hold it in their head and get it genuinely right, and it sets the foundations that the next products in this ecosystem are built on. Your architecture, your stack You will choose the languages, frameworks, cloud, data stores and orchestration approach that you believe best meet the product's requirements. It will need to interoperate with our existing platform over a defined integration contract. Beyond that, we care far more about the qualities the system must have than about any particular technology: Reliable, durable handling of long-running work. Nothing lost, and nothing left stale or silent without someone being told; Strong multi-tenant isolation, enforced by design rather than by convention, with opaque tenant identifiers and per-client credentials. Per-person identity and access, scoped to the organisation a person belongs to. A complete, tamper-evident record of who accessed what and what the system did. A security-first posture suited to confidential data and the certifications firms expect, such as ISO 27001 and SOC 2. A deterministic, auditable boundary around what the AI can reach and what it is permitted to act on. The AI proposes, code disposes. Clean seams, so new capabilities and integrations can be added without rebuilding the core. If you have strong, well-reasoned opinions about how to build systems like this, you will have the autonomy to act on them. What you'll do As the Lead Developer, you will design and build the product end to end, from request handling and AI-driven understanding through to durable task management and high-quality, reliable outputs, and make it foundational to our AI ecosystem. To make that happen you will: Build a new multi-tenant product from zero to one, choosing the stack to fit the requirements. Build scalable, secure, high-performance backend services and a polished admin and supervision experience. Design a safety-first system: untrusted-input handling, a deterministic action boundary, per-tenant isolation and a complete audit trail. Build durable, resumable orchestration for long-running work that delegates to external services. Prototype, test and refine AI-driven features that work reliably with generative AI models and agent- style workflows. Establish engineering processes, DevOps workflows, observability and quality standards. Collaborate cross-functionally with other AI teams, product leaders and senior stakeholders. What you'll bring You are a curious, self-driven engineer who wants to build meaningful technology. 8+ years of professional experience in full-stack development. Deep experience in system design, distributed systems, database architecture and API design. A track record of making and owning architecture and technology choices, and being accountable for the results. Strong proficiency in at least one modern backend ecosystem and a modern frontend framework, able to work full-stack. Experience building secure, multi-tenant SaaS, ideally with data isolation, encryption and secrets management. Experience designing reliable, long-running or event-driven systems where work must never be lost. Hands-on experience with generative AI, automation workflows or agent-based systems. Familiarity with secure integration patterns and third-party APIs, such as MCP or similar tool and connector approaches. CORTO is an inclusive, people-first company committed to breaking down institutional barriers that keep people from reaching their potential. If you meet some, but not all the requirements above, we encourage you to still submit your application. Why join CORTO? Your work matters. We solve real world problems that improve and support local, everyday law firms and related professionals. So they can do their best work for the people in the communities they serve. Make an impact. You won't be another ‘cog in the wheel' here. We give full trust and autonomy for you to be heard, to work on big & complex projects - and to make a real difference. Work with a group of authentic, passionate people who love what they do. Well-funded and global. CORTO is part of ATI Global - one of the largest international LegalTech companies. Flexible and hybrid working. We engage, share, and collaborate on ideas and workflows. Career and learning opportunities - we move fast and need smart people to get us where we're going. We are a scaling business and looking for people who want to grow with us.Have fun with us. Celebrations. Socials. Sports teams. Access to sailing and yacht events. We value your well-being with additional time off, gym membership and other perks. Fast-paced tech environment, if we don't disrupt ourselves someone else will do it!Access to LEAP Home - a program unique to the ATI Group to support you in buying your primary residence.