Principal AI-Native Engineer

Why AIS?

When you join AIS, you’re joining a mission-driven team that’s passionate about making a difference. You’ll work on projects that matter, alongside industry-leading experts, in an environment that fosters innovation, driving client success, and empowering our team to make a lasting impact. As an employee-owned company, we value collaboration, inclusivity, continuous growth, and shared success.

• Employee Ownership: Your contributions directly impact the company’s success, and you share in its achievements.
• Continuous Learning: Access to resources, training, and mentorship to support your professional growth.
• Inclusive Culture: A workplace where diversity is celebrated, and everyone’s voice is valued.
• Mission-Driven Work: Engage in projects that make a meaningful difference for our clients and communities.

What We're Looking For

At AIS, we're looking for more than just skills—we're looking for driven individuals who are passionate about making a difference, eager to grow, and aligned with our core principles.

Working at AIS

At AIS, we are dedicated to providing our employees with diverse opportunities to grow their careers while supporting a variety of impactful projects. For this position, we are seeking a talented individual to join as a Senior Software Architect.

Core Knowledge & Skills

• Operates as a multi-domain subject matter expert (e.g., Security, Data) with industry depth, defines enterprise patterns, and guides adoption across solutions.
• Work & Complexity: Plans and directs the most complex, cross-functional, mission-critical initiatives, and evaluates industry standards to drive innovation and intellectual property.
• Quality & Independence: Acts independently with organization-wide influence, sets visionary bars for quality, reliability, and delivery practices.
• Teamwork & Communication: Models company values, mentors across the organization, builds formal networks with decision makers, and serves as an external spokesperson.
• Consulting & Engagement: Advises executives on strategy, steers long-range planning and new lines of business, and delivers thought-leading presentations at the highest technical level.

Project Summary

The Principal AI-Native Engineer serves as the organization's highest-level hands-on engineering leader for AI-enabled software delivery. This role combines deep expertise in software architecture, cloud engineering, AI-native development practices, platform engineering, and technical leadership. The individual will design and deliver scalable enterprise solutions, establish AI-first engineering standards, mentor engineering teams, and drive adoption of modern Azure and GitHub development ecosystems. The role requires a unique blend of visionary thinking and hands-on execution, with accountability for delivering secure, observable, testable, and maintainable solutions throughout the software lifecycle.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Lead the architecture, design, and implementation of complex software solutions.
• Translate business requirements into scalable technical specifications and solution designs.
• Drive engineering practices across development, testing, deployment, observability, and operations.
• Provide technical leadership for engineering teams and serve as a trusted advisor for solution strategy and delivery.

AI-Native Software Engineering

• Leverage AI-assisted development tools and AI-native engineering methodologies to accelerate software delivery.
• Define and implement effective guardrails, review mechanisms, and quality controls for AI-generated code.
• Establish engineering workflows that maximize developer productivity through intelligent automation.
• Evaluate emerging AI engineering capabilities and continuously evolve development practices.

Software Design Excellence

• Design maintainable, extensible, and resilient systems with long-term sustainability in mind.
• Apply test-driven and quality-driven engineering methodologies.
• Ensure solutions are secure, observable, scalable, and operationally efficient.
• Make architecture and design decisions based on product lifecycle thinking and operational outcomes.

Engineering Quality & Verification

• Lead code review practices and engineering quality initiatives.
• Define and implement comprehensive testing strategies, including automated testing and acceptance testing methodologies.
• Establish standards for deployment validation, monitoring, and production readiness.
• Promote engineering accountability throughout the software lifecycle.

Platform & Technology Enablement

• Drive adoption of modern development and cloud platforms.
• Guide teams in leveraging GitHub, CI/CD pipelines, automation frameworks, and cloud engineering capabilities.
• Collaborate with platform teams to optimize developer experience, security, governance, and operational efficiency.
• Support integration of AI platforms and services into enterprise software development workflows.

Talent Development & Mentorship

• Mentor engineers, technical leads, and architects on engineering design principles and AI-native development practices.
• Coach teams on effective system design, testing strategies, and software craftsmanship.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning, experimentation, and technical excellence.
• Help identify and develop future technical leaders within the organization.

Requirements

Experience

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proven experience designing and delivering enterprise-scale applications.
• Demonstrated ownership of software products throughout their lifecycle, including ongoing operational responsibility.
• Extensive experience leading engineering teams and technical initiatives.

Technical Expertise

• Strong expertise in software architecture and system design.
• Deep understanding of modern software development methodologies and engineering practices.
• Experience implementing automated testing strategies and quality engineering practices.
• Expertise in code reviews, engineering governance, and technical standards.
• Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures and modern software delivery platforms.

AI Engineering Capabilities

• Experience utilizing AI-assisted development tools in production environments.
• Understanding of AI-native software delivery approaches and engineering workflows.
• Ability to establish effective engineering processes that incorporate AI while maintaining quality and security.
• Passion for exploring and adopting emerging AI-driven engineering innovations.

Platform & Cloud Knowledge

• Experience with cloud platforms and modern application architectures.
• Knowledge of source control, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, and deployment pipelines.
• Familiarity with platform engineering concepts, security controls, observability, and operational excellence.

Nice to Have Skills

• Experience working within product-oriented engineering organizations.
• Experience owning software products or platforms through multiple release cycles.
• Strong understanding of software operational models and production support practices.
• Experience delivering highly scalable distributed systems.
• Knowledge of enterprise security, governance, and compliance requirements.
• Experience implementing developer productivity platforms and engineering enablement initiatives.

Pay

The targeted base salary range for this role is $195,000-$210,000 per year. Please note that this range is provided as a guideline and the final offer will be based on several factors, including but not limited to, skillset and competencies, level of experience, education, certifications, and location.