Principal AI Engineer

Job Description:

Job Title: Principal AI Engineer

Location: Springfield, Missouri

Department: Information Technology

Employment Type: Full-time

Job Summary: Join a compassionate, collaborative team making a measurable difference by building enterprise AI capabilities that empower better decisions and faster insights. Five reasons to apply: opportunity to lead AI strategy across the data platform; hands-on work with cutting-edge LLM and Snowflake Cortex AI technologies; influence production-grade analytics used across the business; mentor and grow technical talent; and contribute to responsible, governed AI practices that help others succeed.

We're looking for a creative, systems-thinking engineer with strong data platform expertise, excellent SQL/Python skills, and a passion for translating business questions into scalable AI solutions.

This role is responsible for designing, developing, and implementing enterprise AI capabilities integrated with the organization's data platform (with a focus on Snowflake). You will create natural language-to-SQL solutions, design semantic data models, build prototypes that validate high-value use cases, and guide those prototypes into production. As the senior AI technical contributor within Analytics, you'll partner with Data Engineering and Analytics teams to set architectural patterns, best practices, and governance-aligned standards for LLM-driven systems.

This position offers...
• Employee Assistance Program - 24/7 counseling services, legal assistance, & financial consultation for you and your household at no cost
• Mileage Reimbursement - Company paid for work functions requiring travel
• Employee Discounts - Hotels, Theme Parks & Attractions, College Tuition
• Workplace Culture - An environment cultivating employee wellbeing, valuing each individual's humanity, and actively promoting a healthy, joyful workforce
• Additional Perks & Benefits - Scroll down to bottom of this post to learn more

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead design and delivery of LLM-enabled analytics capabilities using Snowflake and Cortex AI.

• Develop natural language-to-SQL solutions and conversational query interfaces for business users.

• Design and maintain semantic data models that support reliable AI-driven query generation.

• Build prototype AI applications to demonstrate capabilities and validate business value.

• Drive the transition of prototypes into scalable, production-ready solutions on the enterprise data platform.

• Define architectural patterns, best practices, and standards for applying LLM technologies to structured data.

• Partner with Data Engineering on prompt design, query generation frameworks, and evaluation methodologies.

• Identify high-impact AI opportunities across analytics, reporting, and decision support.

• Evaluate emerging AI tools and Snowflake platform capabilities for adoption.

• Support development of responsible and secure AI usage standards aligned with data governance.

• Document system architectures, design decisions, and implementation approaches.

• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to analytics and data engineering team members.

• Function in accordance with operational guidelines and professional ethics.

• Participate in staff development activities.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

Education, Experience, and/or Credential

Qualifications:



• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Data Science, Information Systems, or related field.

• 7+ years of experience in data, analytics, engineering, or applied AI roles.

• Demonstrated experience building or prototyping AI/LLM-driven solutions in enterprise environments.

• Experience with modern data warehouse platforms (Snowflake preferred).

• Proficiency in SQL and Python.

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) preferred.

• Healthcare or regulated industry experience preferred but not required.

Additional Qualifications:

• Strong understanding of modern data warehouse architecture and analytics data modeling practices.

• Experience designing natural language query interfaces or AI-assisted analytics tools.

• Knowledge of prompt engineering, context management, and…