Senior Software Engineer II – Enterprise AI Consulting & Embedded Experts

About the role

We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer II to join our AI Enablement product family within the Consulting & Embedded Experts team. In this role, you will operate as a trusted technical advisor and hands-on engineer, partnering directly with product and business teams to accelerate the safe, secure, and scalable adoption of AI across the enterprise.

Responsibilities

• Partner with product and business teams to identify and deliver high-impact AI use cases aligned to enterprise priorities
• Translate ambiguous business problems into practical, production-ready AI solutions
• Focus on delivering value aligned to measurable outcomes and ROI
• Embed with teams as a Technical Expert
• Bridge the gap between central AI enablement capabilities and domain-specific business needs
• Collaborate in a federated operating model, enabling teams while maintaining enterprise standards
• Build & Scale Reusable AI Capabilities
• Create reusable patterns (e.g., RAG architectures, evaluation frameworks, guardrails) that reduce time-to-market and cost
• Ensure safe, secure, and sustainable AI design
• Implement guardrails, evaluation strategies, and monitoring to ensure trusted AI outcomes and customer protection
• Champion sustainable engineering practices including reusability, scalability, and governance alignment
• Shape Technical Direction & Capability Maturity
• Assess emerging AI technologies and guide teams on when and how to adopt them responsibly
• Influence architecture decisions that enable long-term transformation, not just short-term delivery
• Enable & Elevate Others
• Mentor engineers and product teams on AI best practices, architecture, and delivery approaches
• Contribute to internal knowledge sharing, playbooks, and AI community building (e.g., demos, patterns, guidance)

Requirements

• Associate's or Bachelor's degree (preference in a science, technology, engineering, or math) or equivalent work experience
• 8+ years of engineering experience, including building and scaling distributed systems
• 5+ years of experience working with cloud platforms is required (AWS preferred but open to others)
• 5+ years of experience of working with modern data/AI architectures is required
• Strong ability to operate in ambiguity and move between strategy and hands-on delivery
• Proven ability to influence without authority and drive adoption across teams
• Excellent communication skills—able to translate between technical and business audiences

Qualifications

• Experience building AI/ML or GenAI solutions in production environments
• Familiarity with LLMOps, MLOps, evaluation frameworks, and AI guardrails
• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS) and modern data/AI architectures
• Background in solution architecture, consulting, or platform engineering
• Experience building reusable frameworks, accelerators, or internal platforms

Skills

• Experience building AI/ML or GenAI solutions in production environments
• Familiarity with LLMOps, MLOps, evaluation frameworks, and AI guardrails
• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS) and modern data/AI architectures
• Background in solution architecture, consulting, or platform engineering
• Experience building reusable frameworks, accelerators, or internal platforms

Benefits

Salary Range Information: Salary ranges below reflect targeted base salaries. Non-sales positions have the opportunity to participate in a bonus program. Sales positions are eligible for sales incentives, and in some instances a bonus plan, whereby total compensation may far exceed base salary depending on individual performance.

Actual compensation for all roles will be based upon geographic location, work experience, education, licensure requirements and/or skill level and will be finalized at the time of offer.

Salary Range (Non-Exempt expressed as hourly; Exempt expressed as yearly): $127000 - $152000 / year

Time Off Program: Flexible Time Off (FTO) is provided to salaried (exempt) employees and provides the opportunity to take time away from the office with pay for vacation, personal or short-term illness. Employees don’t accrue a bank of time off under FTO and there is no set number of days provided.

Pension Eligible: Yes

Work Environment: This role offers in-office and hybrid (blending at least three office days in a typical workweek), in Des Moines, IA or Charlotte, NC. You’ll work with your leader to figure out which option may align best based on several factors.

Hours: This role will partner with our global teams and has an expectation for flexibility in your work schedule to have a regular start time around 7:30-8:00 am CST a few days a week.

Work Authorization/Sponsorship: At this time, we're not considering candidates that need any type of immigration sponsorship now or in the future or those needing work authorization for this role. (This includes, but is not limited to students on F1-OPT, F1-CPT, J-1, etc.) Nonimmigrant Workers and Green Card for Employment-Based Immigrants Investment Code of Ethics: For Principal Global Investors positions, you’ll need to follow an Investment Code of Ethics related to personal and business conduct as well as personal trading activities for you and members of your household. These same requirements may also apply to other positions across the organization.

Experience Principal: At Principal, we value connecting on both a personal and professional level. Together, we’re imagining a more purpose-led future for financial services – and that starts with you. Our success depends on the unique experiences, backgrounds, and talents of our employees. And we support our employees the same way we support our customers: with comprehensive, competitive benefit offerings crafted to protect their physical, financial, and social well-being.

Check out our careers site to learn more about our purpose, values and benefits.

Principal is an Equal Opportunity Employer All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.