Principal AI Engineer

Vaco is partnering with a growing education technology organization to hire a Staff / Principal AI Engineer to help define and build the next generation of AI-powered products, platforms, and internal capabilities. This is a highly visible, hands-on technical leadership role focused on bringing practical AI innovation into both customer-facing products and internal business operations.

This person will serve as a technical change leader as the organization moves toward broader use of AI agents, generative AI, machine learning, and LLM-powered product experiences. The right candidate will bring strong architecture and engineering depth, but also a product mindset. This role is about building real solutions, teaching teams how to use AI effectively, securing AI-enabled workflows, and identifying where AI can improve customer experience, training products, marketing funnels, and business outcomes.

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of scalable AI and machine learning solutions across product and internal business use cases
• Architect generative AI systems, LLM-powered workflows, agentic solutions, and AI-enabled product features
• Build and optimize LLMOps pipelines that support reliable deployment, evaluation, monitoring, and iteration of AI models
• Partner with product, architecture, data, engineering, innovation, and marketing teams to identify where AI can create measurable business impact
• Drive AI innovation within customer-facing products, training platforms, digital experiences, and lead conversion workflows
• Evaluate and implement approaches for prompt engineering, context management, embeddings, retrieval, and model optimization
• Design AI systems with feedback loops, automated retraining, fine-tuning, and lifecycle management where appropriate
• Build data pipelines and preprocessing workflows that ensure data quality, security, and regulatory alignment
• Provide hands-on technical leadership through architecture reviews, code contributions, proof-of-concepts, and implementation guidance
• Mentor AI engineers and partner with architects across application, product, CRM, and data domains
• Help establish standards, documentation, and best practices for responsible AI development and deployment
• Stay current on emerging AI trends, including AI's impact on digital marketing, Answer Engine Optimization, Generative Engine Optimization, and customer discovery behavior

• 8 or more years of progressive experience across software engineering, data, analytics, machine learning, AI engineering, or related technology roles
• 1 or more years of experience developing and implementing analytical, AI, or machine learning applications
• Hands-on experience building and deploying LLM-based solutions, generative AI applications, or AI-powered product features
• Strong understanding of machine learning, natural language processing, large language models, embeddings, retrieval patterns, and model evaluation
• Experience with Python, SQL, Hugging Face, Snowflake, and modern ML or analytics tooling
• Experience designing AI or ML solutions in Azure or comparable cloud environments
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, Docker, Kubernetes, MLflow, or similar MLOps and lifecycle management tools
• Ability to translate ambiguous AI opportunities into practical, scalable engineering solutions
• Strong product mindset with interest in customer experience, product innovation, marketing enablement, and business impact
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, influence technical direction, and guide best practices
• Strong communication skills with the ability to present complex AI concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field preferred, or equivalent professional experience

• Experience building AI agents or agentic workflows for internal business operations
• Exposure to AI security, responsible AI, model governance, or securing AI-enabled systems
• Experience applying AI to online shopping, customer acquisition, digital marketing, or lead conversion workflows
• Familiarity with Answer Engine Optimization or Generative Engine Optimization concepts
• Experience with Azure AI services or comparable cloud AI platforms
• Background working in education technology, training platforms, eCommerce, or digital learning environments
• Experience helping organizations adopt AI tools, workflows, and operating models across multiple teams

• Salary range: $170,000…