Associate Director, Engineering & Legal Technology
Simpson Thacher and Bartlett LLP, New York, New York, United States
The Associate Director of Engineering, Legal Technology will provide technical leadership within the Knowledge & Innovation (K&I) department, driving the design, development, integration and delivery of modern legal technology solutions. This role combines hands-on architectural expertise with people leadership and strategic partnership across Knowledge, IT, and external vendors.
This role will lead engineering and solution architecture efforts across both custom-built and SaaS legal technology platforms, while serving as a subject matter expert (SME) for Search, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and related AI-enabled knowledge systems.
This role reports to the Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer (CKIO) and is critical to scaling the Firm's Knowledge & Innovation capabilities. The Associate Director of Engineering will help transform how attorneys access knowledge, leverage AI, and deliver value to clients-while ensuring solutions are robust, secure, and aligned with the Firm's long-term strategy
Key Responsibilities
Engineering & Architecture Leadership
• Lead engineering strategy and solution architecture for Knowledge & Innovation initiatives, ensuring scalability, security, and alignment with Firmwide technology standards.
• Design and oversee integrations across SaaS platforms, internal systems, data sources, and AI / LLM services used in legal workflows.
• Act as technical authority for evaluating, implementing, integrating and extending legal tech solutions (e.g., knowledge management, document intelligence, research, drafting, and workflow tools).
Search, RAG, and AI Enablement (SME)
• Serve as a key subject matter expert for enterprise search, semantic search, vector databases, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures.
• Provide input to document and data storage and organization approaches, to enable the most responsive and performant retrieval approaches
• Partner with Data Science, Practice Solutions & the Firm's Legal Practices to design AI-powered solutions that systematically surface Firm knowledge, precedents, and insights in a secure and auditable manner.
• Help establish best practices for data ingestion, indexing, retrieval, grounding, and evaluation of AI-driven search and generative systems.
• Conduct independent research to stay current on emerging retrieval techniques and their applicability to the Firm
Team Leadership & Delivery
• Lead and mentor a small, high-performing engineering team supporting both custom development and SaaS configuration, integration and extension (focused on lawyer tools).
• Work with IT to set technical direction, establish protocols, review designs and code, and ensure consistent engineering quality and documentation.
• Manage delivery across multiple initiatives, balancing rapid experimentation with production-grade reliability.
Vendor & SaaS Enablement
• Act as technical lead for vendor engagements, including solution viability, design reviews, integrations, and roadmap alignment.
• Oversee customization, configuration, and extension of SaaS legal tech platforms through APIs, middleware, and automation.
• Evaluate emerging legal technology and AI vendors in partnership with Practice Solutions, Data Science and Knowledge Management teams.
Qualifications & Experience
Required
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, or platform engineering, with at least ~5 years in a technical leadership role.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing search platforms, semantic search, or RAG-based systems.
• Strong experience with cloud-based architectures, APIs, and modern development frameworks.
• Proven ability to lead small engineering teams and deliver complex, cross-functional initiatives.
Preferred
• Experience in legal technology, professional services, or other highly regulated environments.
• Experience with document-specific segmentation and storage approaches.
• Familiarity with LLM-integrated search platforms, vector databases, term frequency approaches, structural and hierarchical indexing, knowledge graphs, and corresponding AI governance considerations.
• Familiarity with document classification, text classification and named entity recognition techniques.
• Experience integrating and extending enterprise SaaS platforms.
• Exposure to knowledge management systems, document management systems (DMS), or legal research tools
Key Competencies
• Technical leadership and architectural judgment
• Strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Pragmatic, business-oriented approach to engineering and innovation
• Ability to balance experimentation with enterprise-grade reliability and security
• Curiosity and continuous learning mindset, particularly in AI and legal tech
Salary Information
NY Only: The estimated base salary range for this position is $260,000 to $300,000 at the time of posting.
The actual salary offered will depend on a variety of factors, including without limitation, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, and if applicable, the location in which the applicant lives and/or from which they will be performing the job.
This role is exempt meaning it is not overtime pay eligible.
Simpson Thacher will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position.
Privacy Notice
For information about how Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP collects and processes your personal information, please refer to our Privacy Notice available at https://www.stblaw.com/other/privacy-notice.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is committed to a collegial work environment in which all individuals are treated with respect and dignity. The Firm prohibits discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, citizenship status, disability, marital or partnership status, sexual orientation, veteran's status or any other legally protected status. This Policy pertains to every aspect of an individual's relationship with the Firm, including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, compensation, benefits, training and development, promotion, transfer, discipline, termination, and all other privileges, terms and conditions of employment.
#LI-Hybrid
This role will lead engineering and solution architecture efforts across both custom-built and SaaS legal technology platforms, while serving as a subject matter expert (SME) for Search, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and related AI-enabled knowledge systems.
This role reports to the Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer (CKIO) and is critical to scaling the Firm's Knowledge & Innovation capabilities. The Associate Director of Engineering will help transform how attorneys access knowledge, leverage AI, and deliver value to clients-while ensuring solutions are robust, secure, and aligned with the Firm's long-term strategy
Key Responsibilities
Engineering & Architecture Leadership
• Lead engineering strategy and solution architecture for Knowledge & Innovation initiatives, ensuring scalability, security, and alignment with Firmwide technology standards.
• Design and oversee integrations across SaaS platforms, internal systems, data sources, and AI / LLM services used in legal workflows.
• Act as technical authority for evaluating, implementing, integrating and extending legal tech solutions (e.g., knowledge management, document intelligence, research, drafting, and workflow tools).
Search, RAG, and AI Enablement (SME)
• Serve as a key subject matter expert for enterprise search, semantic search, vector databases, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures.
• Provide input to document and data storage and organization approaches, to enable the most responsive and performant retrieval approaches
• Partner with Data Science, Practice Solutions & the Firm's Legal Practices to design AI-powered solutions that systematically surface Firm knowledge, precedents, and insights in a secure and auditable manner.
• Help establish best practices for data ingestion, indexing, retrieval, grounding, and evaluation of AI-driven search and generative systems.
• Conduct independent research to stay current on emerging retrieval techniques and their applicability to the Firm
Team Leadership & Delivery
• Lead and mentor a small, high-performing engineering team supporting both custom development and SaaS configuration, integration and extension (focused on lawyer tools).
• Work with IT to set technical direction, establish protocols, review designs and code, and ensure consistent engineering quality and documentation.
• Manage delivery across multiple initiatives, balancing rapid experimentation with production-grade reliability.
Vendor & SaaS Enablement
• Act as technical lead for vendor engagements, including solution viability, design reviews, integrations, and roadmap alignment.
• Oversee customization, configuration, and extension of SaaS legal tech platforms through APIs, middleware, and automation.
• Evaluate emerging legal technology and AI vendors in partnership with Practice Solutions, Data Science and Knowledge Management teams.
Qualifications & Experience
Required
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, or platform engineering, with at least ~5 years in a technical leadership role.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing search platforms, semantic search, or RAG-based systems.
• Strong experience with cloud-based architectures, APIs, and modern development frameworks.
• Proven ability to lead small engineering teams and deliver complex, cross-functional initiatives.
Preferred
• Experience in legal technology, professional services, or other highly regulated environments.
• Experience with document-specific segmentation and storage approaches.
• Familiarity with LLM-integrated search platforms, vector databases, term frequency approaches, structural and hierarchical indexing, knowledge graphs, and corresponding AI governance considerations.
• Familiarity with document classification, text classification and named entity recognition techniques.
• Experience integrating and extending enterprise SaaS platforms.
• Exposure to knowledge management systems, document management systems (DMS), or legal research tools
Key Competencies
• Technical leadership and architectural judgment
• Strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Pragmatic, business-oriented approach to engineering and innovation
• Ability to balance experimentation with enterprise-grade reliability and security
• Curiosity and continuous learning mindset, particularly in AI and legal tech
Salary Information
NY Only: The estimated base salary range for this position is $260,000 to $300,000 at the time of posting.
The actual salary offered will depend on a variety of factors, including without limitation, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, and if applicable, the location in which the applicant lives and/or from which they will be performing the job.
This role is exempt meaning it is not overtime pay eligible.
Simpson Thacher will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position.
Privacy Notice
For information about how Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP collects and processes your personal information, please refer to our Privacy Notice available at https://www.stblaw.com/other/privacy-notice.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is committed to a collegial work environment in which all individuals are treated with respect and dignity. The Firm prohibits discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, citizenship status, disability, marital or partnership status, sexual orientation, veteran's status or any other legally protected status. This Policy pertains to every aspect of an individual's relationship with the Firm, including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, compensation, benefits, training and development, promotion, transfer, discipline, termination, and all other privileges, terms and conditions of employment.
#LI-Hybrid