Principal Solutions Engineer - AI Research

Principal Solutions Engineer – AI Research

We are on a mission to make data and analytics easy and accessible to everyone. The work we do empowers any organization—from the world's largest enterprises to small nonprofits—to use data to solve complex challenges that impact businesses, communities, and lives.

This position will serve as a customer‑facing, hands‑on technologist with a track record of success. You will be the technical authority for Cloudera’s Enterprise AI portfolio, bridging the gap between complex data architectures and actionable AI business outcomes.

• Approach the customer with quantitative codesign methods to develop end‑to‑end data and software models based on domain use case, evaluating source inputs, constraints, likely outcomes, operational data metrics, boundary values, and computational needs.
• Investigate problems and open questions in a domain to further understand the computational engineering needs and Cloudera’s capabilities to serve those needs.
• Design and run computational engineering pipelines for prototyping AI solutions that clients target for production implementation.
• Turn promising and practical results into customer solutions, including methodologies, algorithms, technologies, tools, or processes.
• Develop and innovate advanced techniques and methods in corpora lifecycle management, domain skills definition, model development and tuning, agent development and inference.
• Act as a strategic advisor to Cloudera Engineering on new technologies, methods, algorithms required to keep Cloudera competitive in AI.
• Engage with the community on AI visionary events to inspire clients to build AI solutions on Cloudera.

• Innovation Lifecycle: develop advanced techniques, solutions, and methodologies for customer core business process adoption.
• Research Engineering: assist domain experts, scientists, data scientists, and technical engineers to develop AI solutions to meet organizational objectives.
• Computational Engineering: work with clients to define objectives, curate data, algorithms, and outcomes; set up training pipelines, large‑scale customer experiments, and evaluate models for production deployment.
• Research Consultation: consult with research scientists on the art of the possible and invention of new theoretical ideas or practical application of theories to drive a computational engineering solution pipeline.
• Own the Technical Sales Lifecycle: drive the technical sales process from introductory meetings and discovery through to post‑sales success, upselling, and subscription renewals.
• Architect AI Solutions: design comprehensive solutions for customer needs using Cloudera technologies—specifically Cloudera AI, AI Inference, AI Studios, and AI Workbench—based on reference architectures and common patterns.
• Strategic Evangelism: present Cloudera’s product roadmap and vision to C‑level executives (CIO, CTO, CDO), demonstrating how AI Agents and Cloud Bursting accelerate enterprise AI adoption.
• Demonstrate Value: create and deliver inspiring technical presentations and demonstrations that compel customers to say "yes" to Cloudera.
• Voice of the Customer: interface with Product Management and Engineering to advocate for customers’ needs, transforming field feedback into actionable roadmap items.
• Community Leadership: participate in external publicity and evangelism, including speaking at conferences, writing blogs, and leading webinars to drive the narrative around trusted Enterprise AI.

Annual base salary ranges:

• New York: $198,000 - $247,000
• California: $198,000 - $247,000
• Colorado: $198,000 - $247,000
• Illinois: $198,000 - $247,000

Individual compensation within the published range is determined by the candidate’s skills, experience, qualifications, and primary work location. In addition to base pay, sales roles are eligible for Cloudera’s commission plan, while non‑sales roles are eligible for the corporate incentive plan. All employees receive a comprehensive benefits package.

• Generous PTO Policy
• Unplugged Days
• Flexible WFH Policy
• Mental & Physical Wellness programs
• Phone and Internet Reimbursement program
• Continued Career Development
• Comprehensive Benefits and Competitive Packages
• Paid Volunteer Time
• Employee Resource Groups

EEO/VEVRAA