# Principal Python Engineer

> Topoteretes UG (haftungsbeschränkt) · Berlin, Germany (Hybrid) · — · Posted 2026-01-27

**Workplace:** hybrid

## Description

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 Vision** Define and own the long-term architecture of the Cognee Python SDK, ensuring clarity, extensibility, and stability as usage scales.

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

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

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

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

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

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

## Requirements

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

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

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

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

**AI / Data Systems Familiarity** Experience 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 Experience** Prior 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 API** ergonomics 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

## Apply

[Apply at Topoteretes UG (haftungsbeschränkt)](https://apply.workable.com/topoteretes-ug-haftungsbeschrankt/j/943E5286B2/apply)

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