Principal Engineer Applied AI

Principal Engineer, Applied AI

We are seeking a Principal Engineer Applied AI to serve as one of the definitive technical voices with one of our clients. In this high‑impact non‑managerial role you will set system‑wide technical direction, make high‑stakes architectural decisions across multiple engineering teams, and continuously raise our engineering ceiling through hands‑on leadership and mentorship. If you thrive on solving the hardest cross‑system problems, establishing production AI standards, and building resilient architecture for frontier AI applications, this role is for you.

• Technical Direction and Applied AI Architecture: define enterprise standards; establish technical direction for system architecture, API interfaces, evaluation strategies, and deployment patterns that govern how our engineering teams build.
• Make Mission‑Critical Calls: lead high‑consequence architectural decisions that transcend individual team scopes, taking ownership to define, document, and defend the technical vision.
• Architect for Production AI Realities: build robust systems designed for the unique challenges of AI at scale, including non‑determinism, model drift, evaluation‑as‑engineering, cost‑latency tradeoffs, and novel failure modes.
• Domain Expertise: serve as a trusted authority on frontier model evaluation, RAG retrieval architectures, multi‑agent design, and state‑of‑the‑art AI infrastructure—distinguishing battle‑tested tools from research hype.
• Hands‑On Technical Leadership: lead from the front by staying deeply active in the technical work, reading code, running benchmarks, writing prototypes to resolve architectural debates, and building reference implementations.
• Tackle Unowned and Complex Problems: own cross‑system redesigns, resolve multi‑component production incidents, and fix stubborn performance bottlenecks that elude standard debugging.
• De‑risk Core Decisions: pressure‑test high‑stakes choices—including model selection, build versus buy infrastructure, sovereign deployment trade‑offs, and long‑term architectural commitments.
• Engineering Quality and Mentorship: set the bar by leading deep design reviews, architecture evaluations, and post‑mortems as a standard‑setting function where your approval establishes the baseline for production readiness.
• Multiply Engineering Talent: mentor senior and staff engineers, accelerating their growth and permanently elevating technical standards across the organization.

• 12+ Years of Software Engineering
  
  Experience:
  
  proven track record operating successfully at the Staff or Principal level.
• Deep Technical Authority: demonstrated experience designing, launching, and maintaining mission‑critical production systems relied upon by other engineering teams.
• Multi‑Team Architectural Leadership: proven ability to define long‑term architectural visions, clean APIs, and engineering practices that shape organizational execution.
• Current Hands‑On Technical Depth: active, day‑to‑day engagement with code and systems, maintaining the credibility required to solve complex bugs alongside senior engineers.
• Track Record as a Technical Multiplier: history of elevating surrounding engineers, establishing enduring practices, and resolving the hardest cross‑domain architectural challenges.
• Executive and Technical Communication: exceptional written and verbal communication skills—capable of drafting comprehensive RFCs, architecture docs, facilitating design reviews, and articulating technical realities to executive leadership clearly and concisely.