Principal Engineer, AI Platform
About this role
Technical leaders who thrive at architecting agentic AI systems and shipping them in production will find a natural home on this team. Ridgeline is building the future of investment management software, creating a front-to-back system of record designed to replace outdated technology with a single, real-time data set and embedded AI.
As a Principal Engineer on the AI Platform team, the person in this role will guide the architecture and development of agentic AI systems while directly contributing to product delivery. Daily work involves designing workflows that power customer-facing software, connecting external data via retrieval-augmented generation, and building systems for token-efficient AI usage.
This role exists to establish engineering standards, resolve systemic technical obstacles, and provide cross-company impact by helping diverse engineering squads adopt shared AI capabilities. Someone who succeeds here balances deep systems architecture expertise with the ability to align stakeholders across teams and drive technical strategy in a collaborative environment.
What you will do
- Define and drive technical strategy and architecture for Ridgeline's AI platform and shared AI capabilities across the company.
- Lead technical decisions that enable engineering teams across the firm to use AI platform capabilities in scalable, reliable, secure, and responsible ways.
- Identify and resolve systemic technical obstacles that limit the availability, usability, extensibility, or reliability of the AI platform.
- Establish engineering standards and architectural approaches that help teams make sound decisions as AI technologies and capabilities evolve.
- Partner across Engineering, Product, Data, and other functions to connect AI platform investments to company priorities and customer outcomes.
- Architect solutions for integrating external data via retrieval-augmented generation and build systems for token-efficient AI usage.
- Propose and evaluate new AI features to advance the platform's capabilities and resolve technical debates to align teams.
What you need
- Fifteen or more years of software engineering experience, with deep expertise in systems architecture.
- Significant experience building and shipping an AI-powered product in production, including agentic loop design, structured responses, tool calling, Model Context Protocol, and retrieval-augmented generation.
- Proven ability to design scalable, efficient system architectures and evaluate the right technologies for AI system components.
- Experience establishing software development best practices and reliability or evaluation standards for AI models in production.
- Full-stack experience across front-end and back-end AI product development, with proficiency in Kotlin, TypeScript, and React.
- Experience working with both Anthropic and OpenAI models and APIs.
- Track record of driving technical or architectural decisions and aligning stakeholders across teams amid competing viewpoints.
- Demonstrated success integrating third-party data sources and delivering measurable improvements in AI model performance and token efficiency in production.
Nice to have
- Experience with multi-agent systems, AI agent orchestration, or advanced model evaluation techniques.
- Background in financial services or investment management.
- Contributions to open-source AI/ML projects or publications in the space.
Benefits
- Company Stock Plan subject to applicable Stock Option Agreement
- Unlimited vacation
- Educational and wellness reimbursements
- $0 cost employee insurance plans
Skills and tech stack
Questions candidates ask
What is the salary range for this role?
The typical starting salary range is $253,000-$316,000. In select locations including the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City Metro Area, an alternate range of $278,000-$347,500 may apply.
What kind of tech stack and AI tools will I be working with?
You will use Kotlin, TypeScript, and React for full-stack development, alongside Anthropic and OpenAI models and APIs. The work also involves agentic loop design, tool calling, Model Context Protocol, and retrieval-augmented generation.
What benefits and perks are offered?
Employees can participate in the Company Stock Plan and receive perks such as unlimited vacation, educational and wellness reimbursements, and $0 cost employee insurance plans.