Principal AI Engineer (Agentic AI)

Salient Group; Sydney; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Salient Group in Australia is seeking a senior engineering leader who remains hands-on while building production-grade AI agents for enterprise deployments. You’ll own architecture, write code, mentor engineers and drive decisions from discovery to production.

This role blends the responsibilities of a Principal Engineer and Engineering Director, with strategic influence and deep technical ownership, collaborating with senior stakeholders to deliver tangible commercial impact.

Qualifications

• Extensive hands-on software engineering experience, especially with Python.
• Strong system design and distributed architectures with robust testing.
• Experience building and deploying AI-powered applications into production.
• Ability to mentor engineers and influence technical decisions while remaining hands-on.

Responsibilities

• Build AI agents and multi-agent systems for production use.
• Own technical architecture and lead design decisions.
• Deliver production AI from prototype to deployment, monitoring and optimisation.
• Lead through engineering by mentoring engineers and establishing standards.
• Partner with enterprise leaders to translate business problems into scalable AI solutions.

Skills

Python

System design

APIs

Distributed systems

Testing & quality

AI code evaluation

Tools

LLM deployment

Tool calling

Vector databases

Job description

Are you a senior engineering leader who still loves to code?

Have you reached a point in your career where you're spending more time managing engineers than actually engineering?

Do you miss solving complex technical problems, building systems from scratch and seeing your own code deployed into production?

We're looking for exceptional engineering leaders who want to remain deeply hands-on while working at the forefront of applied AI.

This opportunity combines the technical ownership of a Principal Engineer with the strategic influence of an Engineering Director, building production-grade AI agents for some of the world's leading enterprises.

You won't just define AI strategy. You'll be the person making it happen.

The Opportunity

We're partnering with a frontier AI deployment organisation focused on turning the world's most advanced AI models into scalable, production-ready enterprise solutions.

You'll work alongside exceptional engineers and senior stakeholders, solving complex business challenges through applied AI.

Working in small, highly capable teams, you'll own solutions from initial discovery and architecture through to production deployment.

You’ll design the architecture, write the code, lead technical decisions and see your solutions operating in production.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Build AI Agents: Design and deploy production-grade AI agents, multi-agent systems, RAG architectures and intelligent workflows.
• Own Technical Architecture: Lead system design and engineering decisions while remaining actively involved in coding.
• Deliver Production AI: Take solutions from prototype through to deployment, evaluation, monitoring and optimisation.
• Lead Through Engineering: Mentor exceptional engineers, establish engineering standards and solve complex technical challenges.
• Partner with Enterprise Leaders: Translate ambiguous business problems into scalable AI solutions with measurable commercial impact.

What We’re Looking For:

Strong Software Engineering Foundations

• Extensive hands-on software engineering experience, particularly with Python.
• Strong system design, software architecture, APIs and distributed systems experience.
• Excellent engineering fundamentals across testing, code quality, scalability and reliability.
• Ability to critically evaluate AI-generated code and make sound architectural decisions.

Applied AI & Agentic Engineering

• Proven experience building and deploying LLM-powered applications into production.
• Hands-on experience with AI agents, tool calling, orchestration and structured outputs.
• Strong understanding of RAG, vector databases, embeddings and retrieval strategies.
• Experience with frontier models, LLM evaluations, guardrails and observability.
• Understanding of how to balance AI capabilities with traditional software engineering.

Technical Leadership

• Experience leading complex engineering initiatives from architecture to deployment.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and communicate technical decisions effectively.
• Comfortable mentoring engineers while remaining a strong individual contributor.
• Commercially minded, adaptable and comfortable solving ambiguous problems.

We're particularly interested in engineers who:

• Build, not just advise - You're still comfortable opening your IDE and solving difficult problems yourself.
• Take AI beyond POCs - You've deployed AI systems that real customers and businesses rely on.
• Have exceptional engineering fundamentals - You leverage AI coding tools without compromising software quality.
• Lead without leaving the technology - You influence architecture, mentor engineers and engage with executives while remaining hands-on.
• Thrive around exceptional engineers - You enjoy challenging technical environments where engineering quality matters.

Why Join?

Frontier AI: Work with some of the most advanced AI models and technologies available.

Stay Hands-On: Progress your career without moving away from engineering.

Exceptional Engineering Teams: Collaborate with highly capable engineers solving genuinely difficult problems.

Enterprise Impact: Build AI systems that transform how leading organisations operate.

Ownership & Autonomy: Lead projects from initial concept through to production, with significant technical influence.

N.B. Must require full working rights in Australia