Principal AI Developer

About the role

Energy Transfer is looking for a hands-on AI Developer with strong expertise in Python or .NET, cloud platforms, and modern data tooling to join our multidisciplinary Enterprise AI team. This developer will work alongside AI engineers/developers and business analysts to build, ship, and iterate on real production AI solutions. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment where they own work end-to-end: prototyping, building, deploying, and refining. Candidates who have come up through a smaller company or startup environment — wearing multiple hats and shipping real systems — will feel right at home.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, deploy, and maintain AI solutions using Python and/or .NET.
• Build AI agents using Microsoft Copilot Studio or the Semantic Kernel Agent Framework.
• Build and optimize cloud-native applications on Azure.
• Work with large-scale data in Databricks.
• Partner with AI engineers/developers and business analysts to turn ideas and experiments into production systems.
• Apply critical thinking to evaluate model performance, troubleshoot complex issues, and improve system efficiency.
• Communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Prototype quickly, test rigorously, and iterate often.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience, with relevant job experience commensurate with the selected job level (see below).
• Professional experience building production systems with Python or .NET (proficiency in both is a strong plus).
• Strong working knowledge of cloud services and architecture patterns — Azure preferred (or equivalent experience in AWS or GCP, with willingness to ramp on Azure).
• Hands-on experience building RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines.
• Hands-on experience building AI agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio, Semantic Kernel Agent Framework, or an equivalent agent framework (e.g., LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI).
• Hands-on experience with at least two of the following: Azure AI Search (or equivalent vector/semantic search platform — Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector, Elasticsearch with vector, AWS Kendra/OpenSearch), Vector databases, Semantic search, Agentic AI systems (multi-step reasoning, tool use, orchestration).
• Comfort working with SQL and large-scale data platforms (Databricks experience is a plus, but the syntax is approachable if you know SQL).
• Excellent communication and critical-thinking skills.
• Background in a smaller company or startup environment with significant ownership of technical work.
• Required experience is commensurate with the selected job level:
  • Senior Specialist: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience and 5‑8 years of relevant job‑related experience.
  • Lead Specialist: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience and 8+ years of relevant job‑related experience.
  • Principal Specialist: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience and 10+ years of relevant job‑related experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proficiency in both Python and .NET.
• Direct hands‑on experience with Microsoft Copilot Studio and/or Semantic Kernel specifically.
• Hands‑on experience with Databricks specifically.
• Practical ML experience (model training, evaluation, deployment).
• Familiarity with Azure AI Foundry (or equivalent — AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI) and Azure OpenAI (or equivalent managed LLM service) in production.
• Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol) or similar agent‑tooling standards.
• Natural Gas Pipeline or Energy Industry work experience is a plus.

Benefits

• Industry leading compensation
• Comprehensive benefits
• 401(k) match with additional profit sharing