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Principal Ai Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Principal AI Engineer Location: US(NYC)- 3(WFO) Employment Type: Full Time (Overlapping EST) About the Role Hiring a Staff/Principal AI Engineer to lead enterprise-scale agentic AI implementations ...

We are seeking a Principal AI Engineer to design, build, and scale AI‑driven systems across our product platforms. This role is ideal for a deeply technical engineer who leads through hands‑on ...

Principal AI Engineer, Applications

$138K - $185K/yr

Job Summary The Principal AI Engineer, Applications is responsible for transforming Granicus' AI data and agent capabilities into secure, scalable, and production-grade applications and workflows ...

Job Summary The Principal AI Engineer, Applications is responsible for transforming Granicus' AI data and agent capabilities into secure, scalable, and production-grade applications and workflows ...

Principal AI Engineer

Atlanta, GA · On-site

$130 - $160/hr

Principal AI Engineer is a senior technical leader responsible for designing, developing, and guiding the implementation of advanced artificial intelligence systems that support business goals. They ...

Principal AI Engineer

Tucson, AZ · On-site

$179 - $226/hr

NOIRLab is seeking an accomplished Principal AI Engineer to define and lead the organization's artificial intelligence strategy, technical architecture, and AI engineering capabilities. This highly ...

Principal AI Engineer

Dallas, TX · On-site

$140 - $150/hr

We are seeking a highly experienced Lead / Principal AI Engineer to lead the design, development, and deployment of advanced AI and large language model (LLM)-powered solutions within a regulated ...

Principal AI Engineer is a senior technical leader responsible for designing, developing, and guiding the implementation of advanced artificial intelligence systems that support business goals. They ...

Role Overview As a Principal AI Engineer within the Artificial Intelligence & Data (AI&D) organization, you will serve as a senior technical leader responsible for designing, building, and delivering ...

About This Opportunity We are looking for a Principal AI Engineer who builds things that matter. You will design and ship end-to-end AI solutions for some of APAC's most complex enterprise problems ...

Principal AI Engineer

Tucson, AZ · On-site

$179 - $226/hr

NOIRLab is seeking an accomplished Principal AI Engineer to define and lead the organization's artificial intelligence strategy, technical architecture, and AI engineering capabilities. This highly ...

Principal AI Engineer is a senior technical leader responsible for designing, developing, and guiding the implementation of advanced artificial intelligence systems that support business goals. They ...

Principal AI Engineer

Tucson, AZ · On-site

$179K - $226K/yr

NOIRLab is seeking an accomplished Principal AI Engineer to define and lead the organization's artificial intelligence strategy, technical architecture, and AI engineering capabilities. This highly ...

About This Opportunity We are looking for a Principal AI Engineer who builds things that matter. You will design and ship end-to-end AI solutions for some of APAC's most complex enterprise problems ...

NOIRLab is seeking an accomplished Principal AI Engineer to define and lead the organization's artificial intelligence strategy, technical architecture, and AI engineering capabilities. This highly ...

Principal AI Engineer

Tucson, AZ · On-site

$179K - $226K/yr

NOIRLab is seeking an accomplished Principal AI Engineer to define and lead the organization's artificial intelligence strategy, technical architecture, and AI engineering capabilities. This highly ...

Overview We are seeking a Principal GenAI Architect / Forward Deployed Principal Engineer to lead the design, delivery, and productionization of enterprise-grade Generative AI solutions within a ...

Showing results 41-60

Principal Ai Engineer information

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$74K

$147.2K

$212.5K

How much do principal ai engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Sep 4, 2026, the average yearly pay for principal ai engineer in the United States is $147,220.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $118,500.00 and $173,000.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is the difference between Principal Ai Engineer vs Data Scientist?

AspectPrincipal Ai EngineerData Scientist
Required CredentialsBachelor's/Master's in CS, AI, or related; extensive experience in AI/MLBachelor's/Master's in CS, Statistics, or related; strong analytical skills
Work EnvironmentLeading AI projects, designing algorithms, collaborating with engineering teamsAnalyzing data, building models, generating insights for business decisions
Employer & Industry UsageTech companies, AI-focused firms, R&D departmentsBusiness sectors, tech companies, research institutions

The Principal Ai Engineer typically focuses on leading AI development and strategic implementation, requiring advanced technical expertise and leadership skills. In contrast, Data Scientists primarily analyze data and develop models to inform business decisions. While both roles require strong analytical backgrounds, the Principal Ai Engineer often works on more complex AI systems and architecture, whereas Data Scientists focus on data analysis and insights.

How much does a principal AI engineer make?

A principal AI engineer typically earns between $130,000 and $200,000 annually, depending on experience, location, and industry. They often have advanced skills in machine learning, deep learning, and programming languages like Python or TensorFlow, and may receive bonuses or stock options as part of compensation.

What is a principal AI engineer?

A principal AI engineer is a senior technical role responsible for designing, developing, and leading artificial intelligence projects and solutions. They often have extensive experience in machine learning, deep learning, and data science, and may oversee teams or collaborate with cross-functional departments to implement AI strategies.
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Infographic showing various Principal Ai Engineer job openings in the United States as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 76% Full Time, 21% Part Time, and 3% Contract. Highlights an 64% Physical, 4% Hybrid, and 32% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $147,220 per year, or $70.8 per hour.

Principal AI Engineer

IMR Soft LLC

Manhattan, NY • On-site

Other

Posted 4 days ago


Key responsibilities

  • Design and build agentic systems, including architecture and implementation of tool-calling agents that combine retrieval, reasoning, and secure action execution.

  • Own the full stack of AI applications by delivering data pipelines, backend services, distributed compute, and orchestration layers.

  • Build, maintain, and review high-quality Python and SQL code, focusing on scalability, performance, and reusability.


Job description

Principal AI Engineer
Location: US(NYC)- 3(WFO)
Employment Type: Full Time (Overlapping EST)
 
About the Role
Hiring a Staff/Principal AI Engineer to lead enterprise-scale agentic AI implementations for Fortune 500 clients.
This is a hands-on engineering role focused on designing and shipping autonomous, tool-calling AI systems — agents that reason over enterprise context, invoke real systems through secure interfaces, and operate reliably at scale under strict latency, cost, and governance constraints.
 
You will own these systems end to end: the data pipelines feeding them, the backend services around them, the agent orchestration layer, the evaluation harness that keeps them honest, and the cloud infrastructure they run on. We are looking for engineers with genuine software engineering and data science depth who have taken agentic systems all the way to production.
What We're Looking For
 
Engineering foundation
  • 8–14 years of software engineering experience, with strong hands-on large-scale Python
  • Working depth in at least one systems or backend language — Go, Rust, Java, or C/C++ — and the judgment to know when to reach for it
  • Strong data structures and algorithms. 
  • Strong understanding of APIs, microservices, and system design
  • Hands-on experience building and operating data pipelines and production-grade distributed systems.
 
Agentic AI and LLMs
  • 2+ years of hands-on LLM engineering, with at least couple agentic system you designed and took to production
  • Production experience with agent frameworks — LangGraph, Google ADK, CrewAI, Claude Agent SDK, or equivalent — and the fluency to move between them as the ecosystem evolves
  • Experience building MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers and tool-calling interfaces
  • RAG from first principles: chunking strategy, embeddings, vector and hybrid retrieval, reranking, and response validation
  • Strong experience with vector databases (Milvus, Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, etc. or cloud equivalents)
  • Design of guardrails and reliability patterns — validators, policy checks, self-correction loops, deterministic fallbacks, circuit breakers, and rollback paths
     
Optimization
  • Deep familiarity with token optimization and context-window management — context shaping, pruning, and compaction
  • Latency and cost optimization through caching, model routing, batching, streaming, and parallel tool calls
  • Performance testing and tuning systems against defined SLOs
 
Evaluation
  • Experience building evaluation frameworks for LLM systems — offline eval sets, continuous online evaluation, and regression detection
  • Instrumentation and traceability suitable for regulated enterprise environments using tools like LangSmith, Langfuse, etc.
 
Cloud
  • Hands-on AWS: containerized services (ECS/EKS), serverless (Lambda), data services (S3, DynamoDB, Redshift) and orchestration (Step Functions); Azure or GCP equivalents also valued
  • Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices
  • Infrastructure as code with Terraform or CloudFormation, and mature CI/CD practice
 
Working traits
  • Strong analytical problem-solving with a bias to ownership and urgency
  • Clear cross-team communication, working directly with client stakeholders to translate business problems into technical roadmaps
  • Able to work productively in ambiguity from system-level documentation and ramp quickly in unfamiliar codebases
Good to Have
  • Experience with managed AI platforms — Amazon Bedrock, Vertex AI, Azure AI — paired with fluency in the underlying fundamentals
Roles & Responsibilities
  • Design and build agentic systems: Lead the architecture and implementation of tool-calling agents that combine retrieval, structured reasoning, and secure action execution with least-privilege access.
  • Productionize LLM applications: Build retrieval pipelines, prompt synthesis, response validation, and self-correction loops, backed by rigorous evaluation.
  • Own the full stack: Deliver the data pipelines, backend services, distributed compute, and orchestration layer that agentic systems depend on — not only the model invocation.
  • Engineer for reliability and governance: Build validator models, adversarial test suites, and policy checks; enforce deterministic fallbacks and rollback strategies; instrument continuous evaluation.
  • Optimize for cost and latency: Drive measurable improvements in token efficiency, response time, and unit economics against defined SLOs.
  • Codebase ownership: Build, maintain, and review high-quality Python and SQL, with an emphasis on reusable components, scalability, and performance.
  • Cloud integration: Deploy AI applications on AWS, Azure, or GCP with optimized resource usage and robust CI/CD.
  • Cross-functional collaboration: Partner with product owners, data scientists, and business SMEs to define requirements and deliver impactful AI products.
  • Mentoring and technical leadership: Set engineering standards and share knowledge across the team, raising the bar on AI and software engineering practice.

IMR Soft logo

About IMR Soft

Sourced by ZipRecruiter

IMR Soft. is one of the fastest-growing, USA based Information Technology company specializing in software development and IT Services. Founded in 2017, by a team of experienced professionals with a solid base in IT and Management. Headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. We help clients Create the Future. We deliver innovative information technology solutions and unlimited services that benefit our clients by maximizing their performance. We combine tech expertise and business intelligence to catalyze change and deliver results. In a world that is constantly changing, companies are faced with the challenge of continually adapting to a dynamic environment.

Company size

51 - 200 Employees

Headquarters location

Princeton, NJ, US

Year founded

2017