Sr. Principal Engineer

We're looking for a Principal Engineer to help shape secure, scalable, and resilient multi-cloud systems while driving forward next-generation AI capabilities. This is a hands-on technical leadership opportunity focused on modern architecture, generative AI, and reusable engineering patterns across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform environments.
Responsibilities

• Design and guide highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems across multiple cloud platforms.
• Define reference architectures, engineering standards, and reusable platform patterns that support long-term scalability.
• Lead modernization efforts for applications, data platforms, APIs, event-driven services, and integration frameworks.
• Architect and integrate generative AI solutions using leading foundation model platforms and services.
• Develop secure approaches for retrieval-augmented generation, agentic workflows, prompt orchestration, evaluation, observability, and cost control.
• Partner closely with engineering, architecture, security, infrastructure, data, compliance, and business teams.
• Support system design with a strong focus on resiliency, disaster recovery, data protection, regulatory needs, and responsible AI practices.
• Mentor senior and junior engineers through technical reviews, guidance, and knowledge-sharing.
• Evaluate architecture tradeoffs related to portability, managed services, performance, operational risk, and cloud spend.
• Stay hands-on with prototypes, implementation decisions, and technical problem-solving for the most complex initiatives.

Skills

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with significant technical leadership responsibility.
• Strong background in distributed systems, cloud-native architecture, APIs, messaging, containers, Kubernetes, and infrastructure as code.
• Deep experience with Azure and working knowledge of AWS; exposure to Google Cloud Platform is also valuable.
• Hands-on experience building generative AI applications with foundation models such as Anthropic Claude or comparable services.
• Practical experience with RAG, vector search, model gateways, agent frameworks, prompt engineering, model evaluation, guardrails, and AI observability.
• Experience designing secure systems in a regulated industry environment.
• Strong knowledge of identity, encryption, networking, data protection, operational resiliency, secure development, and responsible AI controls.
• Proficiency in a modern programming language such as Java, C#, Go, or Python.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders while remaining collaborative, solution-oriented, and hands-on.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with Amazon Bedrock and Agent Core.
• Background supporting financial services or other highly regulated organizations.
• Experience establishing engineering standards and reusable enterprise patterns across multiple teams.
• Familiarity with model risk, AI governance, and cost optimization practices.
• Experience mentoring engineers and strengthening technical teams through coaching and review.

Horizontal is committed to fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace where every team member is respected, supported, and empowered to do their best work. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and experiences who are excited to contribute their perspective, expertise, and creativity.

By applying for this position, you acknowledge and agree that Horizontal Talent may contact you regarding your application using automated technology, including phone calls, SMS/text messages, or email, which may be delivered by our virtual AI recruiter, Alex.