Principal AI Engineer

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The Principal AI Engineer acts as Humana’s senior technical authority for agentic AI platforms, overseeing strategy, architecture, and engineering execution. This role ensures the development and operation of secure, scalable, and innovative AI infrastructure, tools, and services that empower teams to build and deploy autonomous agent-driven applications. By collaborating across engineering, data science, and operations, the Principal AI Engineer advances enterprise AI capabilities, sets technical standards, and delivers production‑ready solutions aligned with Humana’s long‑term technology vision.

• Lead enterprise architecture, design, and engineering for agentic AI platforms, ensuring secure, scalable, and reliable infrastructure.
• Build and maintain developer tools, CI/CD pipelines, and automation for efficient agentic AI application development and deployment.
• Architect and manage cloud‑based AI services (GCP preferred), including Kubernetes, security controls, and observability systems.
• Develop robust backend APIs and services in Python to support agentic AI platform functionality and data management.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams, set engineering standards, mentor peers, and drive innovation aligned with Humana’s AI technology roadmap.

Use your skills to make an impact

• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related quantitative field.
• 10+ years of professional software or platform engineering experience.
• Deep expertise in Python, including building production services and shared libraries used by others.
• Hands‑on experience with modern AI systems, including LLM integration, RAG, embeddings, and applied generative AI patterns.
• Strong background in machine learning engineering, including model deployment, monitoring, evaluation, and lifecycle management.
• Expert‑level understanding of FastAPI, Flask, or similar frameworks, and REST/gRPC service design.
• Strong proficiency with cloud‑native development on AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Minimum 5 years of containerization and orchestration experience (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Production experience with CI/CD pipelines, version control, and modern Dev Ops practices.
• Demonstrated ability to own large, ambiguous problems and deliver high‑value, high‑quality solutions.

• Experience shaping engineering culture or influencing architectural direction across teams.
• Experience with generative AI tooling (e.g., Lang Chain, Llama Index, PydanticAI, or similar).
• Strong understanding of deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, Tensor Flow).
• Experience with distributed systems (Akka, Flink, or similar).
• Prior work building platforms rather than one‑off applications.
• A track record of pragmatic decision‑making, balancing innovation with maintainability and long‑term value.

This position follows a hybrid work style and must be performed at one of our designated IT hub locations:
Louisville, KY;
Dallas, TX;
Boston, MA;
New York City; or Washington, D.C.

Humana will provide Home or Hybrid Home/Office employees with telephone equipment appropriate to meet the business requirements for their position/job.

Work from a dedicated space lacking ongoing interruptions to protect member PHI / HIPAA information.

40

$172,200 - $236,900 per year

Humana, Inc. and its affiliated subsidiaries (collectively, “Humana”) offers competitive benefits that support whole‑person well‑being. Associate benefits are designed to encourage personal wellness and smart healthcare decisions for you and your family while also knowing your life extends outside of work. Among our benefits, Humana provides medical, dental and vision benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan, time off (including paid time off, company and personal holidays, volunteer time off, paid parental and caregiver leave), short‑term and long‑term disability, life insurance and many other opportunities.

It is the policy of Humana not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual…