Lead Applied AI Engineer

Socket.dev; McLean (VA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) plan with company match

Paid parental leave

Medical, dental, and vision plans

Job summary

Appian seeks a Lead Applied AI Engineer to build AI systems that understand, model, and rebuild enterprise applications, powering AI automation for the world’s largest enterprises. This role is based at our headquarters in McLean, VA, with a policy emphasizing in-office collaboration.

You will drive end-to-end AI systems for agents, orchestration, specification extraction, and rigorous evaluation, shaping engineering practices and documentation across the department.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of relevant software development experience with a BS (or 5+ years with MS).
• Strong distributed-systems background, including retries, idempotency, partial failure, long-running tasks, and recovery.
• Strong software engineering, data-pipeline, and observability skills, comfortable owning a production service end to end.
• Demonstrated experience using AI coding assistants and a strong ability to evaluate, coach others on, and selectively apply AI-generated code in a production engineering context.
• Exceptional ability to communicate highly technical architectures verbally, visually, and in writing to diverse engineering audiences.

Responsibilities

• Develop Clean Software: Architect, build, and optimize production AI systems while keeping a strong hands-on technical presence.
• Build Production Agents: Design reliable agents and orchestration — planning, tool use, memory, and state — with safe, permission-aware boundaries.
• Extract Specifications from Existing Systems: Derive requirements and executable specs from source, metadata, tests, and runtime behavior, and map them onto Appian's object model.
• Model Application Intelligence: Build the semantic and dependency models and retrieval that give AI accurate context across large application estates.
• Prove Correctness with Evaluation: Build the evaluation and CI pipelines that gate quality and catch real regressions.
• Engineer with AI: Use AI coding tools fluently to ship faster without compromising quality or correctness.
• Optimize Performance & Scale: Engineer reliability, latency, and efficiency into core systems at enterprise scale.
• Mentor & Champion Talent: Coach and guide junior engineers to accelerate their technical growth.
• Influence Technical Documentation: Share expertise across the department and publish to Engineering's permanent documentation site.

Skills

Distributed systems expertise

Software engineering

AI coding assistants experience

Communication skills

Education

BS in Computer Science or related field

MS in Computer Science or related field

Tools

AI tooling

Job description

Here at Appian, our values of Intensity and Excellence define who we are. We set high standards and live up to them, ensuring that everything we do is done with care and quality. We approach every challenge with ambition and commitment, holding ourselves and each other accountable to achieve the best results. When you join Appian, you’ll be part of a passionate team dedicated to accomplishing hard things, together.

Lead Applied AI Engineer

Grow your engineering career building the AI systems that understand, model, and rebuild enterprise applications — powering AI automation for the world's largest enterprises.

This role is based at our headquarters in McLean, Virginia. Appian was built on a culture of in-person collaboration, which we believe is a key driver of our mission to be the best. Employees hired for this position are expected to be in the office 5 days a week to foster that culture and ensure we continue to thrive through shared ideas and teamwork. We believe being in the office provides more opportunities to come together and celebrate working with the exceptional people across Appian.

ABOUT THE TEAM

Appian Engineering spans the full depth of our platform: from the foundational layers that power enterprise scale, to the AI capabilities redefining what automation can do. We operate in a highly collaborative, fast-paced environment focused on technical precision, continuous learning, and high code quality. By joining our team, you will solve real-world problems that directly shape how Appian delivers our AI-Powered Process Automation platform to enterprises around the world.

THE OPPORTUNITY

As a Lead Applied AI Engineer, you will serve as a technical linchpin for the team building AI systems that reason about enterprise applications end to end — spanning agents and orchestration, specification extraction from existing systems, application intelligence and retrieval, and rigorous LLM evaluation. These skills are shared across the team, so you'll bring production depth in some of these areas and the range to grow into the others. Equipped with cutting-edge AI tooling, you'll design and deliver systems of real sophistication, shape engineering practices, and deepen your expertise while ensuring flawless Enterprise-Grade Orchestration.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Develop Clean Software: Architect, build, and optimize production AI systems while keeping a strong hands‑on technical presence.

• Build Production Agents: Design reliable agents and orchestration — planning, tool use, memory, and state — with safe, permission‑aware boundaries.

• Extract Specifications from Existing Systems: Derive requirements and executable specs from source, metadata, tests, and runtime behavior, and map them onto Appian's object model.

• Model Application Intelligence: Build the semantic and dependency models and retrieval that give AI accurate context across large application estates.

• Prove Correctness with Evaluation: Build the evaluation and CI pipelines that gate quality and catch real regressions.

• Engineer with AI: Use AI coding tools fluently to ship faster without compromising quality or correctness.

• Optimize Performance & Scale: Engineer reliability, latency, and efficiency into core systems at enterprise scale.

• Mentor & Champion Talent: Coach and guide junior engineers to accelerate their technical growth.

• Influence Technical Documentation: Share expertise across the department and publish to Engineering's permanent documentation site.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science or a related technical/analytical discipline.

• 7+ years of relevant software development experience with a BS (or 5+ years of experience paired with a Master of Science in Computer Science or a related field).

• Strong distributed-systems background, including retries, idempotency, partial failure, long-running tasks, and recovery.

• Strong software engineering, data‑pipeline, and observability skills, comfortable owning a production service end to end.

• Demonstrated experience using AI coding assistants and a strong ability to evaluate, coach others on, and selectively apply AI‑generated code in a production engineering context.

• Exceptional ability to communicate highly technical architectures verbally, visually, and in writing to diverse engineering audiences.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Expertise in code search, repository intelligence, or developer tools.

• Experience with legacy codebase and workflow modernization.

• We value experience with enterprise platforms such as Salesforce or ServiceNow, as these skills translate well into our Enterprise‑Grade Orchestration environment.

The base salary range represents a good faith and reasonable estimate of the range at the time of posting. Actual compensation will be dependent on a number of factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s relevant work experience, qualifications, internal peer equity, and market and business conditions that exist when extending an offer. A discretionary bonus may be awarded in recognition of individual and company performance.

In addition, Appian provides generous benefits offerings that include a 401(k) plan with company match, flexible time off, paid parental leave, medical, dental, and vision plans, life insurance, disability insurance, wellness programs, flexible spending accounts, health savings account contributions, an employee referral bonus program, and learning and development resources. Certain positions may be eligible for equity awards.

Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation, commission, bonus, or benefit plans.

Base Salary Range

$150,000 — $300,000 USD

Tools and Resources

• Training and Development: During onboarding, we focus on equipping new hires with the skills and knowledge for success through department‑specific training. Continuous learning is a central focus at Appian, with dedicated mentorship and the First‑Friend program being widely utilized resources for new hires.

• Growth Opportunities: Appian provides a diverse array of growth and development opportunities, including our leadership program tailored for new and aspiring managers, a comprehensive library of specialized department training through Appian University, skills based training, and tuition reimbursement for those aiming to advance their education. This commitment ensures that employees have access to a holistic range of development opportunities.

• Community: We’ll immerse you into our community rooted in respect starting on day one. Appian fosters inclusivity through our 8 employee‑led affinity groups. These groups help employees build stronger internal and external networks by planning social, educational, and outreach activities to connect with Appianites and larger initiatives throughout the company.

Benefits

Appian offers a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your health, wellbeing, and financial future. Benefits may include health coverage, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with free mental health support, life and disability insurance, an Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP), a retirement/pension plan, wellness dollars, tuition reimbursement, family-forming benefits and more. Benefits vary by country—please ask your Talent Acquisition contact for details specific to the location you are applying to.

About Appian

Appian provides AI automation for mission‑critical work. We automate complex processes in large enterprises and governments. Our platform is known for its unique reliability and scale. We’ve been automating processes for more than 25 years and understand enterprise operations like no one else. For more information, visit appian.com. [Nasdaq: APPN]

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Appian is an equal opportunity employer that strives to attract and retain the best talent. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Appian provides reasonable accommodations to applicants in accordance with all applicable laws. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at [e-mail]. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.

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