Principal Software Engineer: AI & Cloud Architect

Fuel Talent LLC; Bellevue (WA); On-site; USD 280,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus potential

Equity opportunities

Benefits

In-office Bellevue

Job summary

Fuel Talent LLC is hiring multiple Principal Engineers in Bellevue, WA, to lead large-scale distributed systems and AI-enabled platforms. These roles require deep architecture skills and hands-on coding across Java and Python, with a focus on reliability, scalability, and observability.

Ideal candidates will mentor teams, influence technical direction, and thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments, while collaborating with Product, Data, Infrastructure, and AI/ML groups.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• 4+ years operating at the Principal Engineer level or equivalent senior technical leadership role.
• Strong hands-on coding ability and active engineering involvement.
• Experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Deep architecture and system design expertise.
• Strong backend engineering experience with Java and/or Python.
• Experience with modern cloud-native infrastructure and platform architectures.
• Strong communication, technical leadership, and mentorship skills.
• Proven ability to thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.

Responsibilities

• Designing and building large-scale distributed systems and backend services.
• Architecting cloud-native platforms and infrastructure.
• Building AI-native applications, orchestration systems, and intelligent automation frameworks.
• Developing scalable data pipelines and operational data systems.
• Driving reliability, scalability, observability, and engineering best practices.
• Partnering closely with Product, Data, Infrastructure, and AI/ML teams.
• Mentoring engineers and elevating technical standards across the organization.
• Leading technical direction through ambiguity and rapid growth.
• Remaining hands-on in implementation and architecture decisions.

Skills

Hands-on coding

Backend engineering

Architecture & design

Mentorship

Cloud-native

Tools

Java

Python

Azure

AWS

Job description

Fuel Talent LLC is hiring multiple Principal Engineers in Bellevue, WA, to lead large-scale distributed systems and AI-enabled platforms. These roles require deep architecture skills and hands-on coding across Java and Python, with a focus on reliability, scalability, and observability.

Ideal candidates will mentor teams, influence technical direction, and thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments, while collaborating with Product, Data, Infrastructure, and AI/ML groups.