Forward Deployed Application/ ML Principal Engineer

About the role

We help the world run better At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we'll bring out the best in you. We're builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what's next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You'll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What's in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed. You will be part of a growing AI and industry expert team dedicated to serving customers across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. We are building a collaborative, high-impact environment that brings together deep AI expertise, strong industry knowledge, and regional understanding to help customers innovate, transform, and lead in their markets. This team thrives on turning complex business challenges into practical, scalable solutions. We value curiosity, ownership, and continuous learning — and encourage new ideas where real-world impact matters. You will thrive here if you are customer-centric, motivated by meaningful outcomes, and comfortable navigating ambiguity in a fast-evolving AI landscape. Location: this is a hybrid position based from our New York City office located in the Hudson Yards.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and operate production-grade, cloud-native enterprise applications integrating AI capabilities such as large language models, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agent-based workflows.
• Embed directly into customer projects and fast-moving cross-functional teams to rapidly understand business processes, technical landscapes, and operational challenges.
• Translate business and product requirements into robust application architectures, balancing speed, quality, security, and long-term maintainability.
• Rapidly prototype, iterate, and productionize solutions in customer environments, adapting reference architectures and reusable assets to real-world enterprise constraints.
• Own application delivery end-to-end — from problem framing and prototyping through deployment, observability, and production operations.
• Apply AI-assisted engineering practices, evaluation frameworks, and architectural guardrails to