Principal AI Software Engineer

Job Description Summary As a Principal AI Software Engineer, you will drive technical vision and architect enterprise AI applications across multiple initiatives. You will integrate LLMs, agent workflows, NLP, computer vision, and predictive analytics to build secure, high-availability, and cost-efficient AI solutions.
You will partner with product, data science, and engineering leaders, mentor teams, and elevate standards in Agile practices, testing, security, and documentation. This role supports growth, autonomy, and collaboration across both research and product teams.
Responsibilities

• Define AI architecture and technical vision across products
• Lead cross-functional initiatives with product and data science teams
• Design and implement RAG pipelines and agent workflows; optimize LLM integrations
• Build multi-tenant, high-availability systems with strong observability
• Establish AI cost management, monitoring, and security standards

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field
• 10+ years of programming experience using:
• Frontend frameworks (React, Vue, or Angular)
• Backend languages (Python preferred, Java, Node.js, or Go)
• Proven experience designing and shipping production applications using LLMs or AI services at scale
• Experience with vector databases (Milvus, Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector) and embedding optimization
• Expertise with LLM orchestration frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar)
• Experience leading technical teams and driving cross-team initiatives
• Strong cloud experience (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and containerization (EKS preferred)

Eligibility

• Must be able to work from Niskayuna, NY or Cambridge, MA
• Cambridge-based hires must complete a 3-month hybrid onboarding residency in Niskayuna, NY
• Travel, housing, and stipend provided
• Includes collaboration with Client’s Advanced Research Center

Preferred Qualifications

• 13+ years of full software development lifecycle experience
• Strong experience with enterprise RAG architectures and semantic search optimization
• Experience with multi-modal AI, model fine-tuning, and custom model deployment
• Experience with AI observability, cost optimization, and performance monitoring
• Ability to influence cross-organizational technical direction and roadmaps
• Experience developing technical strategy and long-term architecture plans

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary range: $145– $240K
• Bonus: Discretionary annual bonus
• Relocation assistance: Provided

Benefits include:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) with company contributions
• Health coaching and employee assistance programs
• Tuition assistance and adoption support
• Paid parental leave and disability benefits
• 12 paid holidays + flexible time off

Additional Information

• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States (H1B Transfers OK)
• Employment contingent on successful background and drug screening