Principal Engineer, Individual Contributor (AI Banking Platform)

A growth-stage company building AI products for financial institutions is looking for its most senior technical contributor. This is a hands-on seat for a principal-level engineer or technical founder who will own a major domain, set the bar for technical quality by personally coding, and sit at the table with the founders each week.

Scope

• Take full ownership of one core domain: its architecture, quality bar and results
• Architect and write production systems next to your team instead of directing from afar
• Take a weekly seat on the leadership council and work as an equal with the domain’s product manager on measurable outcomes
• Guide engineers and leads, clearing their blockers and growing their capability without turning into a pure people manager
• Keep quality and delivery pace high across the domain’s squads
• Standardize AI-assisted development tools and build on frontier models
• Work on areas such as the AI runtime, agents, a contact center built around AI, integrations, consumer banking or data platforms

Qualifications

• Eight to fifteen years of experience at principal or distinguished level, or as a technical founder who still codes
• A history of building core production systems at scale and taking ambitious bets from zero to one
• Serious credibility around AI and agents, using frontier coding tools every day
• Strong fundamentals, ideally Node.js, React and Python, and a STEM or CS degree
• Recent startup time at Series A to D; voice AI, conversational AI or fintech is a plus

On-site in the San Francisco Bay Area, five days a week. Visa transfers and new sponsorships considered.