Principal AI Engineer Nexus Black

We are seeking a Principal AI Engineer with a builders mindset to define and lead the technical direction of AI agents and intelligent workflows for IFS Nexus Black.

You will operate at the intersection of product strategy system architecture and hands-on executionturning ambiguous customer and business problems into scalable AI capabilities that move the company forward.

This role requires deep production experience with LLM/agent systems strong architectural judgment and the ability to influence across teams. You will set the bar for how we design evaluate deploy and scale AI systems safely and reliably.

Key Responsibilities

1. Technical Strategy & Architecture Leadership

• Define the long-term architecture for AI agents orchestration systems retrieval pipelines evaluation frameworks and safety guardrails.

• Establish technical standards and best practices for LLM usage agent planning/execution tool integration observability and governance.

• Make high-leverage architectural decisions that balance innovation reliability cost and security.

• Drive build-vs-buy strategy across AI infrastructure (vector stores orchestration layers eval tooling hosting etc.).

2. 01 Innovation to Scaled Systems

• Lead rapid prototyping of AI agents and workflows; validate value with customers.

• Architect and guide the transition from experimental POCs to resilient scalable production systems.

• Identify reusable primitives (agent frameworks SDKs evaluation harnesses) that accelerate future development.

• Ensure systems are designed for maintainability extensibility and enterprise-grade reliability.

3. Cross-Functional & Cross-Org Influence

• Partner with product leadership to shape AI strategy and roadmap.

• Translate ambiguous business goals into technical investment areas and measurable outcomes.

• Collaborate with data engineering platform and security teams to align infrastructure and governance.

• Represent AI technical direction in executive discussions and customer engagements.

4. Evaluation Safety & Quality at Scale

• Design and institutionalize evaluation loops (offline benchmarks regression suites online experimentation human review systems).

• Establish quality metrics golden sets and safety guardrails across agent systems.

• Lead efforts in observability tracing and failure analysis for AI workflows.

• Ensure responsible AI practices and compliance requirements are embedded into system design.

5. Technical Leadership & Talent Development

• Lead architectural reviews and raise the engineering quality bar.

• Mentor senior engineers and shape engineering culture.

• Drive alignment across teams building AI-enabled features.

• Contribute to hiring and calibration for high-impact AI roles.

Qualifications :

Qualifications

Experience

• 812 years in software/AI engineering with a track record of building and scaling complex production systems.

• Proven leadership in taking LLM/agent systems from concept to enterprise-scale deployment.

• Experience influencing technical direction across teams or business units.

Technical Depth

• Deep expertise in:

  • LLM architectures agent frameworks tool use function calling

  • Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) vector search context assembly

  • Evaluation systems (offline/online testing regression quality metrics)

  • Observability and debugging for AI systems

• Strong backend engineering fundamentals (distributed systems services queues data modeling CI/CD cloud-native architecture).

• Expert-level Python; strong familiarity with TypeScript or other backend languages.

• Strong understanding of tradeoffs between experimentation speed and production reliability.

Leadership & Influence

• Exceptional product sense and business alignment.

• Ability to navigate ambiguity and create clarity at both system and strategy levels.

• Strong executive communication skills.

• Demonstrated mentorship of senior engineers.

• Track record of high-leverage technical decisions with measurable business impact.

Additional Information :

We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community we drive innovation strengthen connections and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color religion sex sexual orientation gender identity national origin disability or status as a protected veteran. VEVRAA Federal Contractor Equal Opportunity Employer

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time