Principal AI Engineer

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San Francisco / $250000 - $345000 annum

INFO

Salary

SALARY:

$250000 - $345000

Location

LOCATION

San Francisco

Job Type
JOB TYPE

Permanent

Principal AI Engineer

San Francisco, CA (Hybrid)
Upwards of $300K + Equity

About the Role

We're hiring a Principal AI Engineer to join a high-performing engineering team building intelligent software and scalable AI capabilities that power core products across the business.

This is a hands-on technical leadership position for someone who enjoys solving complex engineering challenges, defining technical direction, and delivering production-grade software. You'll work across the full development lifecycle-from architecture and design through implementation, deployment, and continuous improvement.

You'll collaborate closely with engineering, product, and leadership teams to build reliable, scalable systems that leverage modern AI technologies to solve real business problems.

What You'll Do

Technical Leadership

  • Lead the architecture, design, and delivery of large-scale engineering initiatives.
  • Define technical strategy for complex projects and influence long-term platform direction.
  • Drive engineering decisions that prioritize scalability, performance, reliability, and maintainability.
  • Mentor engineers and help establish technical best practices across the organization.

AI Platform & Product Development

  • Design and build production-ready AI capabilities integrated into customer-facing products.
  • Develop scalable backend services and distributed systems that support intelligent application features.
  • Build reliable data processing and information management capabilities that improve product functionality.
  • Improve the performance, quality, and scalability of AI-powered features through continuous iteration and measurement.
  • Partner with cross-functional teams to identify opportunities where AI can enhance products, workflows, and customer experiences.

Engineering Excellence

  • Lead projects from concept through production deployment.
  • Collaborate across Product, Engineering, and Infrastructure teams to deliver robust technical solutions.
  • Contribute to architectural standards, engineering processes, and platform evolution.
  • Balance rapid product delivery with long-term technical sustainability.

What We're Looking For

  • Extensive experience building and shipping large-scale software systems.
  • Strong background in backend engineering and modern AI or machine learning applications.
  • Experience designing scalable cloud-native architectures and distributed systems.
  • Familiarity with modern AI technologies, large language models, information retrieval techniques, or intelligent automation.
  • Strong programming skills in one or more languages such as Python, Go, Java, or TypeScript.
  • Experience working with cloud platforms, APIs, and modern software infrastructure.
  • Demonstrated success leading complex technical initiatives from architecture through production.
  • Comfortable operating with a high degree of autonomy and solving open-ended technical problems.
  • Experience mentoring engineers or providing technical leadership across teams.

Why Join?

You'll join an engineering-led organization where AI is an integral part of the product strategy rather than a standalone research initiative.

This role offers significant ownership, the opportunity to influence technical direction, and the chance to solve challenging engineering problems while building scalable software used in production every day.

CONTACT

Mark Turp

Principal Recruitment Consultant

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