Principal Software Engineer - AI

Full-time
USA
Senior Level
Posted 1 hour ago
Apply for this position → Go ad-free with Premium ×

Title: Principal Software Engineer

Date: 2026.03

Function: Engineering 

Reports to: Director, Engineering

Position Summary

The Principal Software Engineer will play a critical role in designing, developing, and implementing high-quality software solutions. This position is responsible for the development of next-generation SaaS applications - including AI-powered and agentic experiences - as well as providing technical leadership for long-range investments and planning. The Principal Software Engineer has a passion for building maintainable, scalable, and beautiful applications, with heavy emphasis on optimizing user experience, solving problems, and delighting customers and business stakeholders. The Principal Software Engineer must be able to break down complex problems and design elegant, easy-to-maintain solutions that are resilient and robust. Additionally, this role provides technical leadership, mentorship, and guidance to the engineering team, while driving innovation in AI-assisted development practices and ensuring established best practices are followed.

Critically, this role involves AI/ML integration including semantic search, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) frameworks, vector database architectures, LLM operations, orchestration patterns, and AI tooling integration. We recognize that exceptional engineers may have depth in some areas and breadth in others - experience across these areas is strongly desired but not required. We value engineers who have experience learning and leading the adoption of emerging technologies.

Key Responsibilities

  • Lead the design, development, and implementation of complex software systems and solutions including advanced AI-powered capabilities such as semantic search systems, vector databases, RAG-based architectures, and LLM orchestration patterns.
  • Translate business requirements into a well-formed technical design and help bring that design to life with the team, in an iterative fashion.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define project goals, scope, and timelines as well as translate business requirements into scalable and robust software designs.
  • Mentor and coach team members, fostering their professional growth and promoting a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous learning.
  • Write reusable code, build libraries for future use, conduct code reviews, ensure code quality, and enforce coding standards.
  • Champion the adoption of AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex) to accelerate development velocity and code quality.
  • Build 'golden pathways' and developer experience tooling that scales engineering capability across the organization.
  • Drive technical innovation and identify opportunities for process improvements and optimization.
  • Champion architectural integrity alongside an iterative, gated delivery approach
  • Stay up to date with emerging technologies and industry trends and evaluate their potential impact on our software solutions.

Skills and Experience Needed

  • Bachelor's Degree in software engineering, computer science, information technology, or commensurate experience.
  • 10+ years proven experience in SaaS development, primarily developing user-facing production features on a modern web stack.
  • 5-7 years' experience developing web applications with C# and .NET Core.
  • 5+ years' experience with RESTful design patterns and microservices architecture; including high-scale cloud mechanisms like event hubs, messaging systems, and data lakes.
  • 1+ years’ experience with AI-powered development tools (Claude, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar) with demonstrated track record of leveraging AI assistants to accelerate development velocity and code quality.
  • Experienced in one or more AI/ML areas: semantic search, vector databases, RAG frameworks, LLM orchestration, prompt engineering, or AI tooling development.
  • Excellent troubleshooting skills with the ability to analyze and resolve difficult problems quickly.
  • Experience working in a high transaction, high security environment where SOC2, ISO27001 compliance is required.
  • Strong proficiency in CI/CD pipelines, git workflow, etc.; ideally in Azure DevOps.
  • Mastery of agile development methodologies and DevOps practices.
  • Demonstrated technical leadership experience in software development projects.

Competencies

  • Accountability
  • Adaptability
  • Applied Learning
  • Business Acumen
  • Customer Focus
  • Dealing w/Ambiguity
  • Driving for Results
  • Initiating Action
  • Operational Decision Making
  • Technical/Professional Skills and Knowledge 
  • AI Adoption 

Interview Transparency & Technology Disclosure
We use video/audio recordings and artificial intelligence (AI) tools during our interview process to transcribe responses, evaluate skills, and streamline evaluations. Your data is processed securely and handled in line with our Privacy Policy and local data protection laws.

Go ad-free with Premium ×
Apply for this position →
Check if your resume is a good fit
25/100
Get Full Report
+ 1,284 new jobs added today
30,000+
Remote Jobs

Don't miss out — new listings every hour

Join Premium

Principal Software Engineer - AI

Title: Principal Software Engineer

Date: 2026.03

Function: Engineering 

Reports to: Director, Engineering

Position Summary

The Principal Software Engineer will play a critical role in designing, developing, and implementing high-quality software solutions. This position is responsible for the development of next-generation SaaS applications - including AI-powered and agentic experiences - as well as providing technical leadership for long-range investments and planning. The Principal Software Engineer has a passion for building maintainable, scalable, and beautiful applications, with heavy emphasis on optimizing user experience, solving problems, and delighting customers and business stakeholders. The Principal Software Engineer must be able to break down complex problems and design elegant, easy-to-maintain solutions that are resilient and robust. Additionally, this role provides technical leadership, mentorship, and guidance to the engineering team, while driving innovation in AI-assisted development practices and ensuring established best practices are followed.

Critically, this role involves AI/ML integration including semantic search, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) frameworks, vector database architectures, LLM operations, orchestration patterns, and AI tooling integration. We recognize that exceptional engineers may have depth in some areas and breadth in others - experience across these areas is strongly desired but not required. We value engineers who have experience learning and leading the adoption of emerging technologies.

Key Responsibilities

  • Lead the design, development, and implementation of complex software systems and solutions including advanced AI-powered capabilities such as semantic search systems, vector databases, RAG-based architectures, and LLM orchestration patterns.
  • Translate business requirements into a well-formed technical design and help bring that design to life with the team, in an iterative fashion.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define project goals, scope, and timelines as well as translate business requirements into scalable and robust software designs.
  • Mentor and coach team members, fostering their professional growth and promoting a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous learning.
  • Write reusable code, build libraries for future use, conduct code reviews, ensure code quality, and enforce coding standards.
  • Champion the adoption of AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex) to accelerate development velocity and code quality.
  • Build 'golden pathways' and developer experience tooling that scales engineering capability across the organization.
  • Drive technical innovation and identify opportunities for process improvements and optimization.
  • Champion architectural integrity alongside an iterative, gated delivery approach
  • Stay up to date with emerging technologies and industry trends and evaluate their potential impact on our software solutions.

Skills and Experience Needed

  • Bachelor's Degree in software engineering, computer science, information technology, or commensurate experience.
  • 10+ years proven experience in SaaS development, primarily developing user-facing production features on a modern web stack.
  • 5-7 years' experience developing web applications with C# and .NET Core.
  • 5+ years' experience with RESTful design patterns and microservices architecture; including high-scale cloud mechanisms like event hubs, messaging systems, and data lakes.
  • 1+ years’ experience with AI-powered development tools (Claude, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar) with demonstrated track record of leveraging AI assistants to accelerate development velocity and code quality.
  • Experienced in one or more AI/ML areas: semantic search, vector databases, RAG frameworks, LLM orchestration, prompt engineering, or AI tooling development.
  • Excellent troubleshooting skills with the ability to analyze and resolve difficult problems quickly.
  • Experience working in a high transaction, high security environment where SOC2, ISO27001 compliance is required.
  • Strong proficiency in CI/CD pipelines, git workflow, etc.; ideally in Azure DevOps.
  • Mastery of agile development methodologies and DevOps practices.
  • Demonstrated technical leadership experience in software development projects.

Competencies

  • Accountability
  • Adaptability
  • Applied Learning
  • Business Acumen
  • Customer Focus
  • Dealing w/Ambiguity
  • Driving for Results
  • Initiating Action
  • Operational Decision Making
  • Technical/Professional Skills and Knowledge 
  • AI Adoption 

Interview Transparency & Technology Disclosure
We use video/audio recordings and artificial intelligence (AI) tools during our interview process to transcribe responses, evaluate skills, and streamline evaluations. Your data is processed securely and handled in line with our Privacy Policy and local data protection laws.