Principal Engineer, AI-Driven Platform & Cloud

AHEAD; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical Insurance

401(k)

Paid time off

Parental Leave

Job summary

AHEAD is seeking an experienced Principal Engineer to shape, build, and evolve platforms powering our business. You’ll join an engineering team delivering across cloud, data, AI, and security with a stack including Next.js, JavaScript, Golang, dbt, Snowflake, and PostgreSQL.

You’ll move between user needs, business outcomes, architecture, and production support, mentoring engineers and raising the bar on quality and security. Attractive compensation and benefits offered.

Qualifications

• 8+ years building and operating software systems, with 10+ years preferred.
• Principal-level engineering judgment; simplify complex problems, explain tradeoffs, and produce production-ready solutions.
• AIDLC-first mindset with fluency in AI development tools or coding agents; ability to inspect, test, secure and own deliverables.
• Strong experience with modern web/service development: Next.js, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Golang.
• Deep data engineering experience with dbt, Snowflake, PostgreSQL, and data integrity.

Responsibilities

• Own complex initiatives end to end from understanding user needs to production support and continuous improvement.
• Design and build pragmatic, secure, and scalable solutions across Next.js apps, JS/Golang services, APIs, MCP servers, data pipelines and platform integrations.
• Use AI tools to accelerate delivery, then review, test, secure, and harden everything you ship.
• Lead architecture reviews and code reviews; set engineering standards for quality, security, reliability, and maintainability.
• Collaborate with product, design, data, security, and infra teams to translate ambiguous needs into executable plans.
• Mentor engineers, shape the engineering roadmap, and define how AHEAD builds and operates software.

Skills

Next.js

JavaScript

Golang

dbt

Snowflake

PostgreSQL

Java

C#

Python

Elixir

Kotlin

Job description

AHEAD is seeking an experienced Principal Engineer to shape, build, and evolve platforms powering our business. You’ll join an engineering team delivering across cloud, data, AI, and security with a stack including Next.js, JavaScript, Golang, dbt, Snowflake, and PostgreSQL.

You’ll move between user needs, business outcomes, architecture, and production support, mentoring engineers and raising the bar on quality and security. Attractive compensation and benefits offered.