At Sonar, we are seeking an innovative Research Engineer to join our Data & Agentic team and pioneer the next generation of our code analysis and verification engines. You will be at the forefront of applying cutting-edge AI, advanced agentic workflow and static analysis techniques to complex source code. Your work will directly shape our core products—ensuring both AI-generated and developer-written code meets rigorous enterprise quality and security standards. If you are driven to turn state-of-the-art research into practical, high-impact solutions, this is the role for you.
What you will do
- Create & Innovate: Actively participate in the conceptualization phase. Brainstorm novel ways to improve our products and provide immediate, practical feedback to steer exploratory research toward paths that are both impactful and engineering-feasible.
- Develop Agentic Workflows: Design, prototype, and validate intelligent agentic systems and automated workflows that facilitate writing clean code, identifying root causes of system issues, and remediating complex bugs and vulnerabilities.
- Develop Pragmatic Prototypes: Build hands-on prototypes that prove the viability and scalability of research concepts. Proactively identify engineering bottlenecks or scalability limits and propose effective mitigations early in the research phase.
- Evaluate & Benchmark: Drive the rigorous evaluation of new product features. Construct high-quality datasets, define relevant success metrics, and implement comprehensive benchmarks leveraging Sonar’s existing IP alongside third-party and open-source AI tools.
- Engineer Data Pipelines: Build and manage robust data pipelines to gather, process, and version massive code-centric datasets required for training and evaluating specialized models at scale.
- Translate Prototypes to Products: Collaborate closely with engineering and product teams to integrate successful prototypes into Sonar's cutting-edge products, ensuring they meet the needs of our global user base.
- Communicate and Evangelize: Clearly articulate and document complex technical concepts and research findings to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Experience and qualifications
Advanced academic background in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related quantitative field.
Strong software engineering experience (minimum 2+ years in industry) with proficiency in Python and major modern programming languages.
Practical experience with modern agentic frameworks, software automation tools, and LLM architectures.
Experience of driving research projects from initial ideation to a demonstrable prototype with a high degree of autonomy.
Hands-on experience integrating third-party tools, program analysis frameworks, or open-source libraries into functional prototypes.
Proven experience in data handling: constructing high-quality datasets, defining objective success metrics, and building robust benchmarks for new solutions.
The ability to fast context-switch and maintain momentum across multiple concurrent, fast-moving research topics.
Excellent communication skills in English, with a talent for translating complex research findings into clear, actionable artifacts for product engineering squads.
Background in static analysis: abstract syntax trees (ASTs), code security, bug detection, etc..
Familiarity with LLM techniques such as model fine-tuning, semantic search engines, etc.
Experience with large-scale data processing frameworks and cloud infrastructure (e.g. AWS).
Must have:
Plus:
Skills Required
- Advanced academic background (Master's or PhD) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field
- Strong industry experience in machine learning
- Solid programming skills in Python, experience with ML/DL frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow)
- Experience in NLP or Programming Language Processing (PLP)
- Hands-on experience with modern LLM architectures and techniques
- Experience with large-scale data processing frameworks and cloud infrastructure
- Experience driving research projects from ideation to prototype
- Excellent communication skills in English
What the Team is Saying
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Sonar Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage includes 90% employer-paid premiums for U.S. employees (60% for dependents), fully paid life and disability insurance, and 100% telemedicine for eligible employees. This breadth positions health protection as a clear standout in the package.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off is described as 25 PTO days in the U.S. with additional days based on seniority or circumstances, while other sources cite roughly 18–23 days in practice. Overall, the vacation offering is portrayed as generous relative to common tech norms.
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Retirement Support — Retirement benefits feature a 401(k) match up to 4% of gross salary in the U.S., with some postings noting day-one vesting. This provides a solid baseline for long-term savings support.
Sonar Insights
What We Do
Sonar provides the essential verification layer for the AI-driven development era, ensuring all code—whether human-written or AI-generated—is code you can trust. Today, AI coding tools are generating explosive volumes of code. This has created an "engineering productivity paradox" : faster code writing doesn't automatically lead to faster, safer software delivery. The new bottleneck is verification. Sonar solves this. Integrating code quality and code security into a single platform (SonarQube), Sonar is the foundation for high performance software engineering, analyzing over 750 billion lines of code daily to ensure applications are secure, reliable, and maintainable. As an independent verification platform, Sonar enables organizations to securely develop at the speed of AI. We are driven by a deep belief in our people, a commitment to excellence, and an unwavering dedication to delivery. We operate as a united group where our collective success is the sum of each individual's contributions. Our company culture is driven by the values of CODE: Committed, Obsessed, Deliberate & Effective. This mindset reflects our culture of creativity, collaboration, and pride in the work we do. Rooted in the open source community, Sonar’s solutions support over 35 programming languages, frameworks, and infrastructure technologies. Today, Sonar is used by 7M+ developers worldwide, including ServiceNow, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank, AstraZeneca, and Ford Motor Company. Sonar is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland with additional offices in Austin, Texas; Bochum, Germany; London, Singapore, and Tokyo. The company is rapidly growing with over 800 employees! Join us in our mission to solve the trillion-dollar challenge of bad code!
Why Work With Us
We are a product-first company, with a people-first culture. Every employee has the opportunity to grow and learn. We promote from within, provide regular feedback and professional development opportunities, value the right to fail along with respect and kindness and work with team members to achieve their full potential.
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Sonar Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
At Sonar, we require employees to come into the office 3 days/week.
