Principal AI Engineer

DrFirst, Inc.; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

DrFirst, Inc. is seeking a senior AI automation engineer to architect and deliver production AI systems. You will balance hands‑on engineering with servant leadership, map workflows with department leaders, and ship tools that augment colleagues across the organization.

You will mentor engineers, run discovery sessions for executives, and push robust security and compliance as part of daily delivery.

Qualifications

• 8+ years building production systems end‑to‑end (backend, frontend, integrations, infrastructure).
• Staff/Principal Engineer or Tech Lead experience owning technical decisions on production systems.
• Shipped SaaS products with OAuth2, multi‑tenancy, audit trails, and enterprise compliance.
• Deep AI/ML experience: production systems using LLM APIs and agent frameworks.
• Production Python: FastAPI, Pydantic, httpx, pytest (1000+ test suite).
• AWS and Kubernetes: EKS operations, GitLab CI/CD, ArgoCD, Helm, Secrets Manager.
• Enterprise security patterns: Zscaler proxies, SSL certs, K8s networking, JWKS verification.
• Healthcare or regulated industry experience (HIPAA, SOC 2, or similar).
• Strong communication: run discovery sessions with non‑technical stakeholders, explain trade‑offs to executives.
• Servant leadership mindset and ability to thrive in organized chaos.
• Bias toward shipping: quick feedback over perfection.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build production AI automation systems from discovery to deployment.
• Lead 3–5 production tools per sprint and ship multiple deployments daily.
• Mentor 2–3 engineers through code reviews and pairing.
• Translate technical decisions for executives and non‑technical leaders.
• Collaborate with department leaders to map workflows and build interfaces.

Skills

Production systems

Staff/Tech Lead

OAuth2 & security

AI/ML integration

FastAPI / Python

AWS & Kubernetes

Enterprise security

Communication

Servant leadership

Shipping mindset

Tools

Next.js

Okta SSO

GitLab CI/CD

ArgoCD

Helm

Playwright

Claude / AWS Bedrock

Job description

For 25 years, DrFirst has empowered providers and patients to achieve better health through intelligent medication management. We help patients start and stay on therapy with end-to-end solutions that improve prescription access, affordability, and adherence. Our solutions reach 100 million patients a year and are used by more than 420,000 prescribers, 71,000 pharmacies, 270 EHRs, and over 2,000 U.S. hospitals. This is a chance to join a growing Healthcare IT company, work with smart colleagues, and solve complex challenges at a scale few companies match.

Position Overview

DrFirst is building an agentic ecosystem at scale. In the last 90 days we shipped production AI systems across HR, Finance, Legal, and Marketing, automating hundreds of hours of manual work monthly and delivering measurable business impact.

This is a hands‑on technical leadership role. You architect and build production AI automation systems from discovery to deployment, working directly with department leaders to map workflows and ship tools that augment their work.

The split is 80% individual‑contributor engineering and 20% servant leadership. You build and own technical architecture decisions. As the team scales from 2 to 5‑6 engineers over 18 months, you mentor through code review and pairing, teach non‑technical leaders to use AI tools, and run discovery sessions that extract workflows from stakeholders. Building stays your primary focus.

Who Will Love This Job

• You are a senior IC who loves shipping code daily. You have been a Staff or Principal Engineer or led small teams, but you miss hands‑on building.
• You can architect multi‑agent systems and run discovery sessions with department VPs to map their workflows.
• You can debug OAuth2 flows through enterprise proxies and explain security requirements to non‑technical stakeholders.
• You are a servant leader who removes blockers, teaches through pairing, and makes stakeholders successful.
• You organize chaos: 15 stakeholders, 6 systems, 3 sprints in flight. You ask "How can I help?" first.

What You Will Work On

Build Production AI Automation (80%)

• Architecture: Design and build Python/FastAPI backends connecting to enterprise APIs (HRIS, ERP, CRM, finance, project management).
• Frontend: Build Next.js/React frontends with Okta SSO, role‑based access control, and audit trails.
• Multi‑Agent Systems: Design agent coordination, skill discovery hubs, agent registries, and workflow orchestration.
• Enterprise Integration: Navigate Zscaler proxies, VPNs, SSL certificates, Kubernetes networking, DynamoDB, and AWS Bedrock.
• Testing: Write Playwright end‑to‑end tests and maintain a 1000+ test suite with visual regression baselines.
• Deployment: Ship via GitLab CI/CD to AWS EKS (Kubernetes, ArgoCD, Helm, Secrets Manager) and diagnose pod issues.
• Performance: Debug event loop blocking, convert synchronous I/O to async, and optimize CPU‑bound operations.
• Security: Partner with the CISO on PII/PHI de‑identification, least privilege, and per‑user OAuth2.
• Production Support: Debug authentication flows, token expiration, API rate limits, and health check failures.

You will ship 3-5 production tools in parallel each sprint, deploying multiple times per day on stakeholder feedback.

Servant Leadership and Mentorship (20%)

Guide 2-3 engineers through code review and pairing. Teach department leaders to use AI tools. Translate technical decisions for executives. No direct reports and no performance reviews.

• Technical Mentorship: Code reviews, pairing sessions, and unblocking complex integrations.
• Non‑Technical Teaching: Run discovery sessions with VPs, teach Finance/HR/Legal leaders to prompt AI tools, and build interfaces they can modify.
• Stakeholder Translation: Explain security trade‑offs and translate "OAuth2 delegation" into "everyone sees only their own data."
• Remove Blockers: Clear obstacles, elevate infrastructure issues, and coordinate across departments.
• Knowledge Sharing: Document patterns and write playbooks department heads can follow without engineering help.

Qualifications

Required

• 8+ years building production systems end‑to‑end (backend, frontend, integrations, infrastructure).
• Staff/Principal Engineer or Tech Lead experience owning technical decisions on production systems.
• Shipped SaaS products with OAuth2, multi‑tenancy, audit trails, and enterprise compliance.
• Deep AI/ML experience: production systems using LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock) and agent frameworks.
• Production Python: FastAPI, Pydantic, httpx, pytest (1000+ test suite experience).
• AWS and Kubernetes: EKS operations, GitLab CI/CD, ArgoCD, Helm, Secrets Manager.
• Enterprise security patterns: Zscaler proxies, SSL certificates, Kubernetes networking, JWKS verification.
• Healthcare or regulated industry experience (HIPAA, SOC 2, or similar).
• Strong communication: run discovery sessions with non‑technical stakeholders, explain trade‑offs to executives, write architecture docs leaders can follow.
• Servant leadership mindset and ability to thrive in organized chaos.
• Bias toward shipping: "good enough to get feedback" beats "perfect in 3 months."

Preferred

• Led small teams (2‑5 people) through mentorship or tech lead roles.
• US‑based (US Central time zone preferred; Poland also considered).
• Built agentic systems: agent coordination, scheduled routines, and feedback loops.
• MCP (Model Context Protocol) experience: custom connectors for enterprise systems.
• Active contributor to AI/ML communities (papers, open source, conference talks).
• Experience teaching non‑technical users through workshops and business‑user documentation.

AI‑Augmented Engineering (Non‑Negotiable)

• Active, daily use of AI engineering tools (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, or similar). Hard requirement.
• Experience with Claude (Anthropic) is highly valued, via Claude.ai, Claude Code CLI, API, or AWS Bedrock. Our platform runs on Claude Sonnet 4.5.
• At least one automation you built that eliminated hours of manual work, ideally using LLM APIs.
• Comfort teaching others to use AI tools through pairing and code review.

Technical Stack

• Frontend: Next.js 14 (React 18, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS), NextAuth.js/Okta SSO, Playwright.
• AI and Agentic: Anthropic Claude (AWS Bedrock), AI coding assistants, MCP connectors.
• Base salary of $175,000 - $200,000 (exact compensation may vary based on skills and experience), plus a performance‑based bonus program.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401K eligible after 3 months, with 50% company match up to the first 5% of salary (3‑year vesting).
• HSA with company contribution up to $500 individual / $1000 family per year for HDHP enrollees.
• 100% company‑paid short and long‑term disability, AD&D, and group life insurance.
• 18 days PTO for the first 3 years of service (increasing thereafter) plus 7 paid holidays.
• Employee Assistance Program and voluntary benefits (FSA, hospital indemnity, accident, critical illness).
• Continuing Education funds up to $1500 annually after 1 year of service.