Principal, AI Engineer
Salary: Open + Bonus
Location: Chicago, IL
Hybrid: 3 days onsite, 2 days remote
*We are unable to provide sponsorship for this role*
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree
- 10+ years of software engineering and systems architecture experience, with demonstrated technical leadership
- 5+ years as a senior individual contributor on complex, high-stakes production systems
- Expert-level Python; proficient in SQL
- Deep system design expertise: distributed systems, microservices, event-driven architectures, APIs, and MCP servers
- Hands-on experience with data engineering: pipelines, transformation, and data modeling
- AWS experience; comfort with Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines
- Strong production AI/LLM experience
- Strong working knowledge of AI risk vectors: hallucinations, prompt injection, bias, data privacy, and output validation
- Familiarity with frontier models including Claude, GPT, and Gemini, and hands-on experimentation with emerging tools
- Experience connecting AI agents to enterprise systems and workflows
- Infrastructure as code (Terraform)
Preferred
- Production experience building and operating LLM-powered applications
- Experience designing and operating agentic AI systems in enterprise environments
- Hands-on experience with Anthropic’s tooling and APIs, including the Claude API, Claude.ai, or the Anthropic Console
Responsibilities
- Partner with the Executive Director of AI Engineering to define and execute AI technical roadmap, translating organizational priorities into concrete architectural decisions
- Lead agentic AI efforts: architect, build, and operate systems that connect AI agents to internal systems, data pipelines, and business workflows
- Leverage direct relationships with AWS and Anthropic to evaluate and adopt new model capabilities and tooling as they become available
- Build and ship production AI applications on AWS using Claude and related Anthropic tooling, maintaining high standards for reliability, security, and auditability
- Architect scalable systems that integrate LLMs and AI agents into internal systems, operational workflows, and business processes, owning decisions from design through production deployment
- Serve as the primary technical mentor for junior engineers: conducting code and architecture reviews, modeling engineering best practices, and raising the team's overall technical level (no direct reports)
- Define and enforce AI safety standards appropriate for a regulated SIFMU environment, including hallucination detection, output validation, bias assessment, and audit trails that satisfy SEC and CFTC oversight expectations
- Establish responsible AI practices and safety guardrails for LLM applications operating on sensitive financial data
- Navigate change management and security review processes when deploying AI systems into production
- Evaluate emerging AI technologies and provide concrete, risk-aware recommendations on adoption
INDS
Pay: From $190,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Chicago, IL 60606
