Principal AI Engineer & Tech Lead

Aretec, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

401(k) Matching

Certification Stipends

Professional Development

Flexible Work Arrangements

Remote options

Paid Time Off

Job summary

Aretec, Inc. is seeking a hands-on Principal Engineer / Technical Lead to guide the architecture and implementation of a Greenfield AI Solution within the Enterprise Search team.

You will make critical design decisions, write production code, lead integrations, review code, and manage technical risk across AI and backend systems. You will mentor engineers, collaborate with federal stakeholders and client teams, and ensure outputs stay grounded in source material and real-world use.

Qualifications

• Deep hands-on software engineering across backend services, APIs, and modern web apps.
• Led architecture and complex implementations for mission-critical systems.
• Strong Python skills and practical AI/LLM architecture experience.
• Experience with RAG, retrieval systems, agent orchestration, prompt frameworks, evaluation, and guardrails.
• Strong system integration, data flow, testing, code-review, and technical-risk-management skills.
• Ability to explain technical decisions and tradeoffs clearly to engineers, program leaders, and customer stakeholders.
• Ability to work effectively within an existing multidisciplinary delivery team.

Responsibilities

• Own overall technical architecture for AI Solution, including application, integration, data, and AI design decisions.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership while designing, implementing, testing, and reviewing production code.
• Lead complex integrations with Client, enterprise data platforms, authentication services, and supporting APIs.
• Define scalable patterns for LLM integration, retrieval, agent orchestration, source traceability, evaluation, and guardrails.
• Translate program objectives into an executable engineering roadmap, sequencing work according to value, complexity, cost, access, and risk.
• Set engineering standards for security, reliability, maintainability, observability, documentation, and automated testing.
• Identify architectural and delivery risks early; recommend mitigations and communicate tradeoffs to technical and program stakeholders.
• Mentor engineers, facilitate design reviews, and resolve cross-stack technical issues without becoming detached from implementation.
• Partner with federal stakeholders and the Client team to ensure outputs remain grounded in source material and support, not replace, human judgment.

Skills

Python

Backend services

APIs

AI/LLM architecture

RAG & retrieval

Code review

Mentoring

Stakeholder communication

Job description

Aretec, Inc. is seeking a hands-on Principal Engineer / Technical Lead to guide the architecture and implementation of a Greenfield AI Solution within the Enterprise Search team.

You will make critical design decisions, write production code, lead integrations, review code, and manage technical risk across AI and backend systems. You will mentor engineers, collaborate with federal stakeholders and client teams, and ensure outputs stay grounded in source material and real-world use.