Principal Software Engineer, AI Email Applications, Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Next Step Systems; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

Savings Plan

PTO

Job summary

Next Step Systems is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for AI Email Applications, a hands-on leadership role remote in the United States. You’ll own the engineering layer, shape architecture across backend, APIs, and client apps, and mentor a small team of senior engineers.

You’ll drive reliable AI-powered workflows, build integrations between AI capabilities and product experiences, and balance latency, cost, and user experience while scaling systems and maintaining high code quality.

Qualifications

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) experience is required.
• Significant experience leading application or product engineering for complex systems.
• Hands-on background building and shipping backend systems used in production.
• Experience building AI-powered products or systems that integrate with ML/LLM capabilities.
• Strong technical judgment and the ability to make decisions with incomplete information.
• Comfortable working across backend and client platforms, with deep expertise in at least one.
• A strong bias toward ownership, shipping, and learning from real-world usage.
• High standards for code quality, reliability, and engineering fundamentals.

Responsibilities

• Own the application engineering strategy and execution across backend, mobile, and desktop.
• Design reliable systems for AI-powered workflows, including state, orchestration, tool use, retries, fallbacks, and failure handling.
• Build the APIs and abstractions that connect AI systems to real-world product experiences.
• Lead a small, senior engineering team and raise the technical bar through design reviews, code reviews, and mentorship.
• Make high‑impact trade‑offs across latency, reliability, cost, security, and user experience.
• Establish strong production foundations: observability, monitoring, testing, and operational excellence.
• Partner closely with Machine Learning leadership to turn model capabilities into robust, shippable product experiences.
• Move quickly while keeping the architecture simple, maintainable, and ready to scale.

Skills

AI experience

Leadership

Backend development

ML/LLM integration

Technical judgment

Cross-platform

Ownership mindset

Code quality

Job description

Principal Software Engineer, AI Email Applications, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Required - Work From Home

As the Principal Software Engineer, AI Email Applications, you own the engineering layer that turns Artificial Intelligence (AI) capability into a reliable product. You will shape the architecture across backend services, APIs, and client applications, while leading a small team of senior engineers. This is a hands‑on leadership role. You stay close to the code, make critical architectural decisions, and ensure the system remains fast, reliable, and coherent as it scales. This position is 100% Remote.

MUST BE WILLING TO TAKE A 60 MINUTE CODING ASSESSMENT.

Principal Software Engineer Responsibilities:

• Own the application engineering strategy and execution across backend, mobile, and desktop.

• Design reliable systems for AI-powered workflows, including state, orchestration, tool use, retries, fallbacks, and failure handling.

• Build the APIs and abstractions that connect Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems to real-world product experiences.

• Lead a small, senior engineering team and raise the technical bar through design reviews, code reviews, and hands‑on mentorship.

• Make high‑impact trade‑offs across latency, reliability, cost, security, and user experience.

• Establish strong production foundations: observability, monitoring, testing, and operational excellence.

• Partner closely with Machine Learning (ML) leadership to turn model capabilities into robust, shippable product experiences.

• Move quickly while keeping the architecture simple, maintainable, and ready to scale.

Principal Software Engineer Outcomes:

• Production systems are observable, monitored, and stable under real-world load.

• Decisions consistently balance speed, cost, reliability, and user experience.

• Features across backend, mobile, and desktop work smoothly and reliably.

• Latency and reliability improve measurably over time.

Principal Software Engineer Qualifications:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) experience is required.

• Significant experience leading application or product engineering for complex systems.

• Strong hands‑on background building and shipping backend systems used in production.

• Experience building AI-powered products or systems that integrate with modern Machine Learning (ML)/Large Language Model (LLM) capabilities.

• Strong technical judgment and the ability to make decisions with incomplete information.

• Comfortable working across backend and client platforms, with deep expertise in at least one.

• A strong bias toward ownership, shipping, and learning from real-world usage.

• High standards for code quality, reliability, and engineering fundamentals.

Benefits include medical insurance, Dental, Vision, Savings Plan Options, PTO, etc.

Keywords: San Francisco CA Jobs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, AI Email Applications, APIs, Backend, Desktop, IT Lead, LLM, Large Language Model, ML, Machine Learning, Mobile, Principal Software Engineer, Work From Home, Remote, California Recruiters, IT Jobs, California Recruiting