About this role
Engineers who thrive on architectural complexity, mentoring peers, and driving the future of enterprise-grade automation will find a strong fit at Appian Corporation. The engineering department builds the core platform layers and AI capabilities that power automated processes for large organizations worldwide, operating in a collaborative setting focused on precision and code quality.
As a Principal Applied AI Engineer, you will serve as the technical anchor for applied artificial intelligence initiatives. Your daily work involves architecting high-performance production LLM systems, building prototypes to de-risk novel approaches, and leading modernization efforts across multi-tier application layers.
This role exists to establish the technical bar for AI orchestration and mentor software developers across the organization. Ideal candidates bring deep hands-on expertise with production language models, a history of cross-team technical influence, and a commitment to engineering excellence.
What you will do
- Architect, build, and optimize high-performance production LLM systems while maintaining a strong personal technical presence on the team.
- Spearhead strategic technological changes and champion code refactoring efforts to keep the core Appian codebase and AI systems performant.
- Use AI coding tools as a force multiplier to generate, review, and evaluate assisted code without compromising quality.
- Drive technical story breakdowns, acceptance criteria, and architectural design across complex, multi-tier application layers.
- Manage product availability, latency, scalability, and efficiency by engineering deep reliability into core software systems.
- Actively coach and mentor engineers at multiple levels while taking ownership of accelerating the technical growth of those around you.
What you need
- Possess a minimum of a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline.
- Bring 10 or more years of relevant software development experience alongside a Bachelor of Science, or 8 or more years paired with a Master of Science.
- Demonstrate deep hands-on experience designing and operating production LLM systems.
- Show expertise across code generation, agents, retrieval, structured generation, tool use, model routing, evaluation, and observability.
- Have proven experience using AI coding assistants and evaluating AI-generated code in a production environment.
- Exhibit strong distributed-systems, API, security, and reliability foundations at a senior individual contributor level.
- Provide a demonstrated ability to drive technical decisions and shape engineering practices beyond a single team scope.
Nice to have
- Experience with compilers and program analysis
- Experience with formal or executable specifications
- Experience with legacy modernization
- Experience with enterprise platforms such as Salesforce or ServiceNow
Benefits
- 401(k) plan with company match
- Flexible time off
- Paid parental leave
- Medical, dental, and vision plans
- Employee referral bonus program
- Tuition reimbursement
Skills and tech stack
Questions candidates ask
What is the remote work policy for this position?
The position is located remotely within the United States.
What is the salary range for this role?
The base salary range is $200,000 to $350,000 USD, with actual compensation depending on relevant work experience, qualifications, internal peer equity, and market conditions.
What kind of professional development and growth opportunities are available?
Appian provides a leadership program for new and aspiring managers, specialized department training through Appian University, skills-based training, and tuition reimbursement for employees aiming to advance their education.
The application is on the official Appian Corporation careers page.
Apply on company site