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Principal Lead Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Uniphore

Principal/Lead Engineer

Palo Alto, CA · On-site

Lead e2e solution development for multiple high-stakes customer deployments; manage ... Serve as principal AI solution design partner and trusted consultant to senior customer ...

Uniphore

Principal/Lead Engineer

Palo Alto, CA · On-site

Lead e2e solution development for multiple high-stakes customer deployments; manage technical ... Serve as principal AI solution design partner and trusted consultant to senior customer ...

AspenTech

Sr Principal Lead Engineer

Medina, MN · On-site

$154K - $192K/yr

The Role The Lead Engineer serves as a front-line technical leader and supervisor, accountable for the successful technical implementation and quality of advanced real-time SCADA solutions within ...

AspenTech

Sr. Principal Lead Engineer

Medina, MN

$154K - $192K/yr

The Role The Lead Engineer serves as a front-line technical leader and supervisor, accountable for the successful technical implementation and quality of advanced real-time SCADA solutions within ...

Abilitie

Principal/Lead Software Engineer

$138K - $185K/yr

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will lead a small, globally distributed team (primarily in Poland) and report directly to our VP of Engineering. You will guide the design, development, and ...

The Ceres Group

Lead Software Engineer

Burlington, MA · Hybrid

Experience in financial services industry (especially IBOR / ABOR related). * 8+ years of experience as a senior s/w engineer, technical lead or principal/lead engineer. * Very strong experience in ...

McDermott

LUT- Principal Pipeline Engineer

Houston, TX · On-site

The Principal Pipeline Engineering is responsible for interpreting internal or external business ... Prepare, review, and (as Lead Engineer) approve Discipline engineering design basis, philosophies ...

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All JobsPrincipal Lead Engineer Jobs

Principal Lead Engineer information

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$74K

$147.2K

$212.5K

How much do principal lead engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Jun 12, 2026, the average yearly pay for principal lead 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 a Principal Lead Engineer?

A Principal Lead Engineer is a senior-level engineering professional responsible for leading complex technical projects and providing strategic direction within an organization. They typically oversee engineering teams, set technical standards, mentor other engineers, and ensure that projects align with business goals. Principal Lead Engineers often collaborate with stakeholders across departments, contribute to architectural decisions, and play a key role in innovation and problem-solving. Their expertise is critical in driving technical excellence and delivering high-impact solutions.

What engineers make $500,000?

Principal Lead Engineers in technology and engineering fields can earn $500,000 or more annually, especially with extensive experience, advanced skills in systems design, and leadership responsibilities. Compensation often includes base salary, bonuses, and stock options, particularly in high-growth companies or executive-level roles.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Principal Lead Engineer, and why are they important?

To excel as a Principal Lead Engineer, you need deep expertise in engineering principles, systems architecture, and extensive experience in technical leadership, typically backed by a relevant engineering degree. Proficiency in design and development tools, project management software, and industry-standard certifications such as PMP or specific technical credentials is often required. Exceptional communication, mentorship, and problem-solving skills set top candidates apart in leading teams and driving innovation. These abilities are crucial for delivering complex projects efficiently, ensuring technical excellence, and fostering high-performing engineering teams.

Can you make $500,000 as an electrical engineer?

Principal Lead Engineers in electrical engineering can potentially earn $500,000 or more annually, especially with extensive experience, advanced certifications, and leadership roles in high-paying industries like aerospace, defense, or energy. Such salaries are typically achieved through senior positions, bonuses, and stock options in large organizations. Entry-level or mid-career electrical engineers usually earn significantly less than this amount.

What is the highest salary for a principal engineer?

The highest salaries for principal engineers can exceed $200,000 annually, especially in high-cost-of-living areas or within large tech companies. Compensation often includes bonuses, stock options, and other benefits, reflecting experience, industry, and location.

What is the difference between Principal Lead Engineer vs Senior Lead Engineer?

AspectPrincipal Lead EngineerSenior Lead Engineer
Required CredentialsBachelor's or Master's in Engineering, extensive experience, professional certifications often preferredBachelor's or Master's in Engineering, significant experience, some certifications
Work EnvironmentStrategic, cross-functional projects, leadership roles, high-level technical decision-makingProject leadership, technical oversight, mentoring teams
Employer & Industry UsageUsed in large corporations, tech, manufacturing, aerospaceCommon in mid to large companies, tech, engineering firms
Search & Comparison IntentHigh-level technical leadership, strategic influenceTechnical project leadership, team management

The Principal Lead Engineer typically holds a higher strategic and organizational role, focusing on long-term technical vision and cross-team leadership. The Senior Lead Engineer is more involved in project execution and team oversight. Both roles require extensive engineering experience, but the Principal Lead Engineer often has broader responsibilities and influence within the organization.

What engineers make $300,000 a year?

Principal Lead Engineers, especially in high-demand industries like software, aerospace, and oil and gas, can earn $300,000 or more annually with extensive experience, advanced skills, and leadership responsibilities. Compensation often includes base salary, bonuses, and stock options, particularly in large tech companies or specialized engineering firms.

How does a Principal Lead Engineer balance hands-on technical work with leadership responsibilities?

As a Principal Lead Engineer, you are expected to split your time between high-level technical contributions and guiding the engineering team. This often involves architecting solutions, performing code reviews, and mentoring team members, while also collaborating closely with product managers and stakeholders to align technical direction with business goals. Effective time management and strong communication skills are essential to ensure both project delivery and team development. Many Principal Leads find themselves acting as a bridge between senior management and the engineering team, facilitating efficient workflows and driving technical excellence.
More about Principal Lead Engineer jobs
What job categories do people searching Principal Lead Engineer jobs look for? The top searched job categories for Principal Lead Engineer jobs are:
Principal Lead Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Principal Lead Engineer job openings in the United States as of June 2026, with employment types broken down into 48% Full Time, 48% Part Time, and 4% Contract. Highlights an 87% Physical, 5% Hybrid, and 8% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $147,220 per year, or $70.8 per hour.
Principal/Lead Engineer

Principal/Lead Engineer

Uniphore

Palo Alto, CA • On-site

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, Retirement, PTO

Posted 19 days ago

Job description

Uniphore is one of the largest B2B AI-native companies-decades-proven, built-for-scale and designed for the enterprise. The company drives business outcomes, across multiple industry verticals, and enables the largest global deployments.
Uniphore infuses AI into every part of the enterprise that impacts the customer. We deliver the only multimodal architecture centered on customers that combines Generative AI, Knowledge AI, Emotion AI, workflow automation and a co-pilot to guide you. We understand better than anyone how to capture voice, video and text and how to analyze all types of data.
As AI becomes more powerful, every part of the enterprise that impacts the customer will be disrupted. We believe the future will run on the connective tissue between people, machines and data: all in the service of creating the most human processes and experiences for customers and employees.

Job Description:

Uniphore is one of the largest B2B AI-native companies-decades-proven, built-for-scale and designed for the enterprise. The company drives business outcomes, across multiple industry verticals, and enables the largest global deployments.
Uniphore infuses AI into every part of the enterprise that impacts the customer. We deliver the only multimodal architecture centered on customers that combines Generative AI, Knowledge AI, Emotion AI, workflow automation and a co-pilot to guide you. We understand better than anyone how to capture voice, video and text and how to analyze all types of data.
As AI becomes more powerful, every part of the enterprise that impacts the customer will be disrupted. We believe the future will run on the connective tissue between people, machines and data: all in the service of creating the most human processes and experiences for customers and employees.

Job Description:

Key Responsibilities

  • Own Multi-Customer Engagements:Lead e2e solution development for multiple high-stakes customer deployments; manage technicalstrategy,designquality,and roadmaps for Agentic AI rollouts at enterprise scale.

  • Enterprise Architecture Leadership:Architect andvalidateAgenticAIsolutions for large, complex enterprises across multiple industry verticals, ensuring robustness, scalability, security, and compliance.

  • Team Leadership & Mentoring:Help build and guidecross-functionalForward Deployed Engineering teams; coach senior/junior engineers, and cultivate a culture of excellence, collaboration, and innovation.

  • Strategic Customer Partnership:Serve as principal AI solution design partner and trusted consultant to senior customer stakeholders; translate ambiguous needs into actionable engineering and business outcomes.

  • Solution Design Standards:Develop and champion technical best practices, reusable frameworks, and asset libraries to accelerate high-quality solution deployment.

  • Innovation Ownership:Drive ongoing innovation,leveragingdeepexpertisein RAG, multi-agent orchestration, retrievaloptimizations,SLMfinetuningand enterprise AI architecture.

  • Continuous Improvement:As needed, lead post-delivery optimization and adoption,establishingfeedback loops from customers toproduct/platformteamsanddrivingcontinuous improvement.

  • Product&EngineeringPartnership & Innovation:Partner with Product and Platform Engineering teams toprovidestructuredfeedback onfunctional andnonfunctionalgaps,customerrequirementsandpain points. Work with these teams or co-develop oraccelerate critical platform extensions and enhancements for customers.

  • Best Practices, Playbooks & Whitepapers:Draft and publish best practices, playbooks, whitepapers and blog postsonEnterpriseAgenticAIInnovations,Design,Optimizationand Operations.

  • Industry Evangelism:RepresentUniphorein industry events, thought leadership forums, and strategic technical partnerships.

  • Governance and Auditable AI:Set standards for observability, monitoring, and robust telemetry across customer solutions to ensure trustworthy and auditable AI agents.

Qualifications

  • Experience:10+ years relevant experience in enterprise tech, B2B, or AI/technology consulting; proven ability leading complex engineering engagements and technical teams.

  • Leadership:Priortrack recordleadingorworking withForward Deployed Engineering teams and scaling solution delivery in dynamic, client-facing environments.

  • Technical Depth:Mastery of AI solution architecture (multi-agent, RAG, SLM, LLM, multi-modal), enterprise integrationpatterns,dataengineeringand full-stack engineering across modern frameworks and cloud/devopsenvironments.

  • Domain Breadth:Significant experiencedesigning and delivering solutions for enterprise AI in multiple domains or verticals.

  • Consulting & Stakeholder Management:Exceptional communication and influencing skills withseniorcustomersandinternal stakeholders; able to balance technical rigor and business priorities.

  • Education:BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, or related discipline.

Desired Skills:

  • Advanced understanding of regulatory and compliance requirements for AI in business settings.

  • Experienceestablishingengineering processes, quality standards, and best practices across distributed teams.

  • Thought leadership in the AI agentic ecosystem or published work/contributions to OpenAI,LangChain/LangGraph, RAG/KnowledgeGraphcommunities.

  • Full-stack engineering skills: SQL, Data Engineering, Python/Go/Java/Javascript, RAG, Vectordatabases,RetrievalOptimizations,SLM/LLMFine-tuning,GPU/InfraTrends,Prompt Engineering, Agent and Agentic systems design and development.

  • Exposure to platform andproductengineeringandstrategy is a plus.



Hiring Range:

$226,100 - $310,900 - for Primary Location of USA - CA - Palo Alto

The specific rate will depend on the successful candidate's qualifications and prior experience.

In addition to competitive base pay, this position also includes an annual incentive opportunity based on target achievement, pre-IPO stock options, benefits including medical, dental, vision, 401(k) with a match, and more, plus generous paid time off, paid holidays, paid day off for your birthday and other paid leave policies to support employees through all phases of life.


Location preference:

USA - CA - Palo Alto

Uniphore is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity in the workplace. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status, and other protected characteristics.
For more information on how Uniphore uses AI to unify-and humanize-every enterprise experience, please visitwww.uniphore.com.



Hiring Range:

$226,100 - $310,900 - for Primary Location of USA - CA - Palo Alto

The specific rate will depend on the successful candidate's qualifications and prior experience.

In addition to competitive base pay, this position also includes an annual incentive opportunity based on target achievement, pre-IPO stock options, benefits including medical, dental, vision, 401(k) with a match, and more, plus generous paid time off, paid holidays, paid day off for your birthday and other paid leave policies to support employees through all phases of life.


Location preference:

USA - CA - Palo Alto

Uniphore is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity in the workplace. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status, and other protected characteristics.
For more information on how Uniphore uses AI to unify-and humanize-every enterprise experience, please visitwww.uniphore.com.

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