Overview
We’re looking for a Senior Principal AI Engineer to provide hands-on technical leadership across complex, production-grade AI systems. This role is for a builder-architect—someone who has repeatedly taken AI systems from idea to production, understands where they fail at scale, and knows how to unblock teams to move faster without sacrificing outcomes.
This is not a pure strategy or people-management role. It is a deeply technical builder role with organizational impact. You will define technical direction by writing code, designing systems, and helping the organization stay in builder mode as complexity and scale increase.
Architect and build end-to-end AI systems including LLM orchestration, retrieval layers, agentic workflows, and structured reasoning systemsLead the design of multi-agent and tool-calling systems that operate reliably in productionEstablish and evolve architecture patterns for scalable, cost-aware, and observable AI applicationsDrive technical decisions across data modeling, AI pipelines, infrastructure, and APIsDefine best practices for evaluation, monitoring, and governance of AI systems in productionMentor senior engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and system-level debuggingTranslate ambiguous business and domain problems into clear technical strategiesStay ahead of emerging AI techniques and integrate what matters—without chasing hype
12+ years of software engineering experience, with deep hands-on experience building AI/ML systems in productionStrong proficiency in TypeScript, React, Go, Python and modern AI frameworksExtensive experience with LLMs, including RAG, tool use, prompt systems, and agentic architecturesProven ability to design and ship large-scale AI systems that run reliably in real-world environmentsStrong architectural judgment across data systems, AI models, infrastructure, and application layersDeep understanding of AI failure modes: hallucination, drift, brittleness, latency, and cost blowupsExcellent communication skills—able to explain technical tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical audiencesTrack record of shipping systems end-to-end, not just prototypes or research work
We are explicitly looking for builders.By “builder,” we mean an operating mode, not a title.
Bias toward systems that solve user needs, not perfect abstractionsMove comfortably from ambiguity → first draft → iteration → productionOptimize for learning velocity and customer impact, not theoretical completenessAre willing to build the entire arc of a system to surface real constraints earlyTreat quality as something you earn through iteration, not something you gate progress withUnderstand that the last 10–20% of a system—integration, edge cases, UX, usability, reliability—is where real work happens
Helping the organization stay in builder mode as it growsCollapsing unnecessary complexity rather than introducing more processKnowing when architectural rigor matters, and when it is prematurePulling promising work across the finish line instead of waiting for “perfect readiness”Modeling speed, ownership, and clarity for other senior engineersYour impact is measured not only by what you build, but by how much faster and more effectively others can build because of you.
Knowledge graph architecture, ontology design, or semantic modeling in complex domainsGraph databases, graph query languages, or graph ML techniquesHybrid systems combining structured reasoning with LLM-based approachesEntity resolution, schema alignment, or knowledge fusion at scaleAI systems requiring explainability, auditability, or lineage trackingExperience building AI systems in regulated or high-stakes domains (finance, healthcare, legal, government)MLOps, evaluation infrastructure, or long-running AI services operating at scale
Owning the technical direction of real AI systems that make it into productionSolving hard, ambiguous problems where architecture and execution matter equallyLeading through hands-on building, not layers of processWorking in an environment that values shipping, learning, and iteration over perfectionHaving the latitude to shape both systems and how teams build them
BostonFull Timesenior
