Principal Software Engineer (Senior Architect) - AI Platform

sentinellabs; United States; Hybrid; USD 91,000 - 145,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity participation

Performance-based bonus

Employee stock purchase program

Flexible paid leave

Private medical & life insurance

Pension contribution

Wellness allowance

Job summary

Sentinellabs is forming an AI Platform team and seeks a Principal Engineer to be the founding technical leader. You will define the long-term vision, consolidate AI capabilities into a unified platform, and ensure security, cost, and quality across features.

You will work hands-on, translate strategy into capabilities, and guide architectural decisions while mentoring senior engineers. Hybrid setup with global teams as needed.

Qualifications

• Twelve or more years building and operating large-scale distributed systems with platform or infrastructure focus.
• Hands-on production experience with LLM-based systems, model integration, routing, and cost/latency optimization.
• Strong backend skills (Python/Go) and deep Kubernetes/cloud infrastructure experience.
• Proven product instinct and ability to turn customer needs into technical decisions.
• Successful tech lead on cross-team initiatives with ambiguous requirements.

Responsibilities

• Define multi-year technical roadmap for the AI platform (model gateway, routing, agent infra, evaluation pipelines, observability).
• Own architectural decisions, set engineering standards, review designs, guide implementation without people management.
• Translate business strategy into platform capabilities with product and engineering leadership.
• Build customer-facing AI experiences with product teams and productize as reusable platform features.
• Lead build-versus-buy decisions for core platform stack, weighing security, cost, scalability, and time-to-value.
• Mentor senior engineers and be the AI infrastructure authority across the org.

Skills

Distributed systems

LLM deployment

Backend (Python/Go)

Kubernetes

Cloud infra

Technical leadership

Cross-team collaboration

Tools

CI/CD pipelines

Observability stacks

Job description

Role overview

A cybersecurity organization is forming a new AI Platform team to unify and accelerate the delivery of AI-powered capabilities across its product suite, and this Principal Engineer role serves as the founding technical leader of that effort. The position partners directly with engineering leadership to define the long-term technical vision, consolidate existing AI capabilities into a single coherent platform, and ensure every AI feature meets security, cost, and quality standards. It blends deep platform architecture with hands-on product work, turning proven but distributed AI features into reusable infrastructure that any team can build on.

Responsibilities

• Define the multi-year technical roadmap for the AI platform, covering model gateway and routing, agent and tool-use infrastructure, evaluation pipelines, and AI observability.
• Act as tech lead by owning architectural decisions, setting engineering standards, reviewing critical designs, and guiding implementation across the team without direct people management.
• Translate business strategy into platform capabilities and engineering priorities in partnership with product and engineering leaders on business-critical AI initiatives.
• Build customer-facing AI experiences hands-on with product teams, then productize them into shared, reusable platform capabilities.
• Lead build-versus-buy decisions for the core platform stack, weighing security, cost, scalability, and time-to-value.
• Mentor senior engineers across the organization and serve as a recognized authority on AI infrastructure.

Requirements

• Twelve or more years building and operating large-scale distributed systems, with several years driving architecture for platform or infrastructure products consumed by multiple teams.
• Hands-on experience taking LLM-based systems to production, including model integration and routing, retrieval-augmented or agent architectures, evaluation harnesses, and cost, latency, and quality optimization.
• Strong coding skills in a mainstream backend language such as Python or Go, plus deep experience with Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure.
• Strong product instincts, with a track record of building customer-facing products and translating customer needs into technical decisions.
• Demonstrated success as a tech lead on cross-team initiatives with ambiguous requirements, turning broad business goals into a sequenced technical roadmap.

Nice to have

• Background operating at the intersection of cybersecurity and AI, or building platforms for security-adjacent use cases.
• Public technical presence through talks, writing, or open-source contributions in AI infrastructure or MLOps.

Benefits and work setup

• The role offers equity participation along with a performance-based bonus and an employee stock purchase program.
• Time-off benefits include flexible paid leave on top of a multi-week PTO baseline, paid wellness days, fully paid short-term sick and nursing leave, and gender-neutral parental leave.
• Insurance and financial coverage include private medical care, life and disability insurance, a pension contribution, global business travel medical insurance, and an employee assistance program.
• The work setup supports hybrid work in Prague or Brno with a minimum in-office expectation for Prague-based staff, and remote work within Czechia or Slovakia, complemented by a home office allowance, meal allowance, wellness allowance, and a multi-sport benefit program.