DTJP00041110 - AI Principal Software Engineer

ZealHire Inc.; Round Rock (TX); On-site; USD 180,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

ZealHire Inc. in Austin/Round Rock, TX is seeking an AI Principal Software Engineer with 8-10+ years of hands-on experience to design, build, and deploy AI-powered capabilities across the SDLC.

The role emphasizes production AI, security harness engineering, and scalable architecture, requiring strong Python/TypeScript/Go skills, API design, and CI/CD integration. 100% onsite, 12+ month contract; US work authorization required.

Qualifications

• Experience deploying AI-based solutions in production with measurable impact.
• Strong programming in Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Go, or similar and adherence to software engineering best practices.
• Hands-on with modern AI/LLM development: context engineering and agent design.
• Solid software architecture skills: API design, event-driven patterns, scalable data models.
• Experience integrating with REST/GraphQL APIs, CI/CD pipelines, cloud services.
• Ability to work independently through the full delivery lifecycle with accountability.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy AI-powered capabilities across the SDLC.
• Ensure AI-generated code has guardrails, policy enforcement, and verification.
• Integrate solutions with enterprise systems via APIs and webhooks.
• Collaborate with engineering, security, product, and leadership stakeholders.
• Apply secure design practices and enterprise security/compliance requirements.

Skills

AI in production

Python

TypeScript

Go

Security engineering

CI/CD pipelines

APIs

Software testing

Education

CS degree or higher

Tools

MCP protocol

Job description

DTJP00041110 - AI Principal Software Engineer | JPC-9042

USC/GC/GC-EAD/H4-EAD- W2Need LinkedIn, VISA DL In Person Interview Required

Duration: 12+monthscontract

100%onsite role in Austin/ Round Rock, TX

This role is an AI engineering role that needs hands on senior level 8-10+ years experience. This AI engineer will be a software engineer and will need to have enterprise scalability experience (needs to have experience with big name companies). AI engineer also needs security experience, specifically security harness engineering experience. Need enterprise scalability (Experience working for a big company) and security harness engineering experience.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy AI-powered capabilities across the SDLC, including:
  • Spec Driven Development workflows that support the translation of well-formed specifications into secure, verifiable implementations
  • Assurance of AI-generated code - guardrails, policy enforcement, and verification for code produced by AI assistants and agents
  • SDLC skills and agent tooling - developer-assist skills as well as verification skills that perform automated security checks (design review, dependency and supply-chain analysis, static/dynamic analysis orchestration, release audit support)
• Integrate solutions with enterprise systems - source control, CI/CD, ticketing, security scanning, identity, and internal platforms - through APIs, webhooks, and protocols such as MCP (Model Context Protocol)
• Partner with engineering, security, product, and leadership stakeholders to define requirements, evaluate trade-offs, and support solution adoption
• Apply sound architecture and systems design practices: well-defined service boundaries, appropriate data models, secure defaults, observability, and extensibility

Required Skills and Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience developing and deploying AI-based solutions in production environments, with measurable business or operational impact
• Strong programming proficiency (e.g., Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Go, or similar) and adherence to software engineering best practices, including testing, code quality, and maintainability
• Hands-on experience with modern AI/LLM development, including:
  • Context engineering - designing what informs the model's context window, including agentic retrieval and search, memory architectures, grounding in enterprise data, and structured outputs
  • Agentic system design - agent loop engineering, multi-agent and sub-agent orchestration, and tool/function calling
  • Context window management and token budgeting, including cost and latency optimization for production workloads
  • Evaluation of AI system quality, reliability, and safety
• Solid understanding of software architecture and systems design, including API design, event-driven patterns, and data modeling for scalability and extensibility
• Experience developing and/or deploying applications with large-scale impact (broad user base, high transaction volume, or organization-wide adoption)
• Experience integrating with multiple systems and platforms (REST/GraphQL APIs, CI/CD pipelines, cloud services, enterprise tooling)
• Demonstrated ability to work independently across the full delivery lifecycle - requirements analysis, solution design, implementation, deployment, and stakeholder engagement - with accountability for results
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to convey technical concepts to both engineering and business audiences
• Working knowledge of secure development practices and experience designing solutions that meet enterprise security and compliance requirements

Preferred Skills and Qualifications

• Experience applying AI within a security domain - application security, DevSecOps, code analysis, threat modeling, firmware security or software supply-chain security
• Familiarity with secure-by-design / secure-by-default principles and relevant frameworks (e.g., OWASP, including the OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications; NIST SSDF)
• Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol), building agent skills and tools, or extending AI coding assistants (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Devin)
• Experience with AI evaluation frameworks, guardrails, prompt/response caching strategies, and LLMOps in production
• Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science or a related field, or equivalent practical

Security Harness Engineering

$000,000 – $000,000 Salary range is not shown on the candidate portal