Principal AI Architect

Title: Principal AI Architect
Job Type: Direct Hire Role
Pay Range: Targeting $300k - $400k Total Compensation (includes salary, bonus, stocks, and RSUs) + benefits
Start Date: ASAP
Location: Hybrid (3 days onsite) in San Francisco, CA

About the Opportunity:

Our client, a leader in AI-powered talent and sales intelligence software (SaaS), is looking for a skilled Principal AI Architect to join their team. This role is the founding architect for a greenfield AI initiative to completely rebuild their platform with an AI-first architecture, free of legacy constraints. You will work directly with the founder and leadership team to define and build novel AI systems, including LLM-based applications, RAG pipelines, and agentic architectures. This is a high-impact role that requires a self-motivated professional who can hit the ground running and deliver results quickly.

Key Responsibilities & Deliverables:

This role is focused on the successful completion of specific tasks and deliverables. Your responsibilities will include:

• Define and own the architectural vision for next-generation AI systems, including agent architectures, reasoning systems, and proprietary model development.
• Prototype and evaluate advanced AI capabilities such as predictive modeling, autonomous signal synthesis, and multimodal intelligence to create defensible IP.
• Establish technical foundations across data architecture, model serving, agent orchestration, and inference infrastructure for long-term scalability.
• Evaluate and adopt emerging AI paradigms, including multi-agent reasoning, RLHF, and retrieval-augmented fine-tuning.
• Develop engineering standards, architecture review processes, and IP documentation practices.

Required Skills & Experience:

We are looking for someone with a proven track record of successful product delivery. The ideal candidate will have:

• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, AI/ML, or a related field (PhD or equivalent research depth preferred).
• 5+ years of experience in AI/ML engineering, including at least 2 years in a principal engineer or lead architect role.
• Deep expertise in LLM training and fine-tuning, agentic system design, knowledge graph construction, and large-scale data modeling.
• Proven track record of building original AI systems that have been successfully productized.
• Experience in: LLM fine-tuning, RAG systems, and AI application development, and designing production-grade AI systems from scratch.
• Ability to operate effectively in greenfield, high-ambiguity environments with a high degree of ownership.
• Patents, published research, or shipped products with proprietary differentiation are highly valued.
• Strong communication skills to provide clear and concise status updates to the project team.

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