Principal AI Engineer (Platform team)

Improvado; United States; Remote; USD 170,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first environment

Stock options

20 PTO days + US holidays

Professional development reimbursement

Optional relocation assistance to LATM

Job summary

Improvado is a fast-growing Series A startup building a unified marketing intelligence platform for enterprises. We are seeking a Principal Engineer to set the technical direction for AI-assisted engineering, shaping how agentic coding and LLM tooling integrate into our delivery process while maintaining reliability.

You will own platform architecture for core Python-based extraction and load infrastructure, write code, review architecture, and mentor engineers.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of backend engineering with hands-on coding experience.
• Experience as a principal/architect with ownership of production systems.
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development and agentic frameworks.
• Strong background in distributed systems (Kubernetes, Temporal, messaging).
• Solid SQL skills with PostgreSQL and ClickHouse; performance tuning.
• Experience building secure, reliable, scalable systems and observability practices.

Responsibilities

• Own platform architecture for data extraction, load, and pipelines serving 500+ integrations at scale.
• Drive performance and reliability improvements in distributed systems and data stores.
• Lead adoption of AI-assisted development practices and agentic tooling with validation and guardrails.
• Mentor engineers and set high standards for code quality and system reliability.
• Collaborate with product and AI teams on integration capabilities and rollout.

Skills

Backend engineering

Principal Architect

AI-assisted development

Distributed systems

Kubernetes

Temporal

PostgreSQL/ClickHouse

Observability/incident response

English fluency

EST timezone

Tools

Claude Code

Job description

We're a fast-growing Series A startup ($34M raised, $10.3M ARR, 75% gross margin) building the unified marketing intelligence platform for enterprises like Spotify, Asus, and Colgate. Our Platform Team owns the core data pipeline infrastructure powering 500+ integrations — and we're now rebuilding how that work gets done, with AI at the center.

We're looking for a Principal Engineer who can set the technical direction for AI-assisted engineering across the Platform Team — someone who doesn't just use AI tools, but defines how they're used responsibly at scale.

About the Role

You'll be the architectural voice on the Platform Team, shaping how we design, build, and evolve our core Python-based extraction and load infrastructure. More than that, you'll own the engineering practices shift: defining how agentic coding, AI-assisted development, and LLM tooling integrate into our delivery process without sacrificing reliability or maintainability. This is a hands-on role — you'll be writing code, reviewing architecture, and mentoring engineers, not just advising.

Responsibilities

• Own platform architecture: design and evolve data extraction, load, and pipeline systems serving 500+ integrations at scale
  • Identify architectural bottlenecks and drive performance/reliability improvements at scale (Kubernetes, distributed systems, ClickHouse/PostgreSQL)
  • Lead modernization of legacy systems into scalable, AI-native infrastructure
• Design and implement agentic development frameworks for codebase maintenance and continuous improvement — owning the full loop from AI-assisted development to automated acceptance and rollout, with proper validation, testing, and architectural guardrails
  • Make and document key technical decisions; set the bar for code quality, system reliability, and performance
• Mentor and level up engineers on AI-assisted development practices — help them ship faster without introducing hidden risk
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product and AI teams on agentic framework rollout and new integration capabilities

Requirements

• 7+ years of backend engineering (hands-on programming), with at least 2 years in a principal/architect-level role owning production systems
• You've designed and scaled complex systems, not just maintained them
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development (Claude Code, agentic coding) — you ship with it, know its limits and where they break, and have built agentic frameworks for code maintenance and rollout
• Strong distributed systems background: Kubernetes, workflow orchestration (e.g. Temporal), message queues (e.g. RabbitMQ)
• Experience building secure systems that are hard to break, hard to breach, and resilient
• Experience with reliability practices at scale: observability, alerting, incident response
• Solid SQL and query optimization across PostgreSQL and ClickHouse
• Comfortable with ambiguity and high-velocity, fast-shifting priorities — we move like a startup, not a committee
• Ability to work within EST timezone
• Fluency in English

Nice to Have

• Track record of defining engineering standards and driving adoption across a team
• Experience migrating legacy pipeline systems
• Background in data integration or ETL infrastructure

What We Offer

• Remote-first environment
• Direct impact on platform architecture — your decisions matter
• Modern AI-native tech stack with real freedom to experiment
• 20 PTO days + US holidays
• Stock options
• Professional development reimbursement
• Optional relocation assistance to Latin America after trial period