Principal, Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Principal, Artificial Intelligence Engineering
Role Overview
We are looking for a Principal AI Engineer to serve as the technical lead for our newly established AI Research & Engineering team. This senior individual contributor role requires a highly experienced engineer with deep software engineering expertise, strong technical leadership, and foundational knowledge of AI and large language models (LLMs).
You will play a critical role in shaping and delivering our AI strategy, building production-grade systems, and mentoring junior engineers. This position offers the opportunity to work on cutting-edge technologies while fostering a culture of innovation and continuous learning.
Key Responsibilities
- Collaborate with the Executive Director of AI Engineering to define and execute the organization's AI roadmap.
- Architect and implement scalable systems that integrate LLMs and AI into enterprise processes and infrastructure.
- Design and develop production-ready applications for business-critical use cases.
- Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior engineers (no direct reports).
- Conduct code and architecture reviews to ensure security, compliance, and production readiness.
- Develop testing and monitoring frameworks for AI systems, including hallucination detection and bias evaluation.
- Establish responsible AI practices and safety guardrails for LLM applications in regulated environments.
- Integrate AI agents into organizational workflows and systems.
- Research emerging technologies and recommend adoption strategies.
- Promote a culture of continuous learning and experimentation in a rapidly evolving AI landscape.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or related technical field.
- 10+ years of software engineering and systems architecture experience with proven technical leadership.
- 5+ years as a senior technical contributor on complex production systems.
- Expert in Python and proficient in SQL.
- Strong system design experience: monolithic and microservice architectures, distributed systems, event-driven architectures, APIs.
- Hands-on experience with data engineering, pipelines, and transformations.
- Foundational knowledge of LLMs and familiarity with leading models (e.g., Gemini, Claude, GPT).
- Understanding of AI risk factors: hallucinations, bias, prompt injection, and data privacy.
- Experience mentoring and reviewing work of junior engineers.
- Excellent communication skills for explaining complex technical concepts.
- Demonstrated passion for AI/LLMs and commitment to continuous learning.
Preferred Qualifications
- Production experience with AI applications or LLM-powered systems.
- Knowledge of RAG architectures and context engineering.
- Familiarity with diverse LLM provider APIs and agent integration.
- Experience experimenting with frontier AI tools and products.
- Cloud technologies: AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD.
- Infrastructure as code: Terraform.
- Background in financial market infrastructure or derivatives industry.
- Experience working in regulated environments.
FAQs
Congratulations, we understand that taking the time to apply is a big step. When you apply, your details go directly to the consultant who is sourcing talent. Due to demand, we may not get back to all applicants that have applied. However, we always keep your resume and details on file so when we see similar roles or see skillsets that drive growth in organizations, we will always reach out to discuss opportunities.
Yes. Even if this role isn’t a perfect match, applying allows us to understand your expertise and ambitions, ensuring you're on our radar for the right opportunity when it arises.
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That's why we recommend registering your resume so you can be considered for roles that have yet to be created.
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