Principal AI Engineer

What You Will Do:

• Set technical direction: Own architecture for our most complex GenAI and agentic systems end-to-end, and set the standards — evaluation, observability, responsible AI — that the practice builds to.

• Build at the frontier, hands-on: Stay in the code where it matters most — foundation-model and embedding fine-tuning, novel agentic workflows, advanced RAG and semantic search — using Python on Google Cloud (Vertex AI), LangChain/LlamaIndex, and vector search (Vertex AI Vector Search, Pinecone, pgvector).

• Engineer for production: Design for latency, reliability, cost, and scale from day one; apply MLOps discipline so systems are served efficiently, monitored, and continuously improved — and actually reach production, where most AI work stalls.

• Lead multi-step reasoning at scale: Architect and operate agentic workflows that automate complex reasoning reliably, with the design and verification discipline that keeps multi-agent systems from cascading into failure.

• Advise clients and shape deals: Work directly with client leadership to understand strategy, propose state-of-the-art approaches, and shape solutions in pre-sales — the technical authority in the room.

• Multiply the team: Elevate senior and mid-level engineers through architecture reviews, mentorship, and setting a high, teachable bar for AI-augmented engineering.

Your Technical Toolkit:

• Core Languages: Mastery of Python and shell scripting; fluency across the modern AI engineering stack.

• AI/LLM Ecosystem: Deep, current expertise with Google Gemini, GPT-class, and open models (LLaMA); advanced prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and evaluation.

• Agentic Systems: Proven experience designing and productionizing agentic and multi-step reasoning systems (MCP, tool use, orchestration) — not just prototypes.

• Data & Search: Expertise in vector databases (Vertex AI Vector Search, pgvector, Pinecone) and semantic search at production scale.

• Infrastructure: Deep hands-on experience with Google Cloud / Vertex AI and architecting scalable, resilient software systems.

• Frameworks: Strong command of LangChain, LlamaIndex, or equivalent orchestration layers — and the judgment to know when not to reach for them.

• Engineering foundation: A first-class software engineer — clean, maintainable code, full SDLC ownership, and the architectural judgment to lead others.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.

• 10+ years in software / AI / ML engineering, with a substantial track record of AI systems delivered to production at scale.

• Demonstrated technical leadership — owning architecture and setting direction across engagements or teams, not just individual deliverables.

• Proven track record of deploying GenAI and/or agentic products to production environments.

• Experience with classic machine learning (neural nets, training, tuning) strongly preferred; foundation-model or novel-model work a distinct plus.

• Strong data engineering and SQL knowledge.

• Senior client-facing experience — translating technical complexity into business value for executive stakeholders.

Personal Attributes:

• Ownership at scale: You take responsibility not just for your code, but for the outcome of the system and the success of the team building it.

• Curiosity: The AI landscape changes weekly; you stay at the frontier and bring the team with you.

• Consultative authority: You earn the trust of client leadership and are the calm, credible technical voice in a high-stakes room.

• Ethics: You hold the line on responsible AI development and data privacy.