Principal Solution Engineer

African American Talent; Wilmington, Northern (DE, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Cornerstone OnDemand is seeking a Principal Solutions Engineer to scale AI-enabled delivery across Services, Support, and Partners. You will build reusable IP, reference architectures, and playbooks to accelerate outcomes for complex, regulated industries.

You will lead hands-on design, develop production-grade accelerators, and mentor engineers while aligning IP with product roadmaps. Travel as needed to customer sites.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in services/solutions engineering, solutions architecture, or technical consulting.
• Hands-on ability to design and build technical solutions in enterprise SaaS environments.
• Experience turning bespoke delivery work into repeatable productized offerings.
• Ability to translate customer requirements into scalable delivery patterns.
• Strong communication skills with cross-functional stakeholders.
• Willingness to travel to customer sites as needed.
• Problem-solving: Ability to navigate complex, ambiguous problems in fast-paced enterprise environments and drive them to reusable solutions.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field. Advanced degree is a plus.
• Travel: Willingness to travel to customer sites as needed.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy reusable IP and reference architectures for complex deployments.
• Prototype proofs-of-concept and production-grade accelerators hands-on.
• Translate Cornerstone product capabilities into repeatable delivery patterns.
• Establish reference architectures and blueprints for regulated environments.
• Convert bespoke delivery into fixed, scalable offerings.
• Embed AI into delivery workflows and create automated playbooks.
• Define and maintain delivery frameworks and infrastructure templates.
• Measure IP effectiveness and iterate assets based on field results.
• Embed best practices across Services, Support, and Partners.
• Develop diagnostic tooling and self-serve assets to improve adoption.
• Lead and mentor Services engineers and partners; represent the org at events.
• Ensure alignment of solution IP with product roadmaps and go-to-market needs.
• Collaborate with customers and stakeholders to define scope and outcomes.
• Proactively mitigate technical and delivery risk with reusable solutions.

Skills

Asset/productization mindset

Hands-on solution design

AI/automation fluency

Executive communication

Problem solving in enterprise

Strategic influence

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Automation tooling

AI platforms

Configuration templates

Job description

The Principal Solutions Engineer is a force multiplier for the Services & Support Solutions organization. Rather than delivering one project at a time, you build the intellectual property, reference architectures, and productized accelerators that allow every Services consultant, Support engineer, and delivery Partner to move faster, deliver more consistently, and achieve better customer outcomes at scale.

This is a hands-on-keyboard principal role modeled on the capabilities of a Forward Deployed Engineer and Solutions Engineer, adapted to embed repeatable, AI-enabled delivery capability directly into our Services, Support, and Partner solutions. You will deploy alongside our most strategic customers across regulated and complex industries — federal/government/public sector, manufacturing, financial services, and healthcare — to solve the hardest deployment problems once, then convert those solutions into reusable assets the entire organization can run.

Your mandate is to productize solutions for repeatable AI-delivery: designing the automations, agents, playbooks, and templates that turn bespoke expertise into scalable, outcome-based offerings — and ensuring customer outcomes are achieved in the real-world context of each deployment.

In This Role You Will...

Design & Build Force-Multiplying IP

• Design, build, and deploy reusable intellectual property for customer deployments (implementation accelerators, configuration templates, integration patterns, and AI agents/workflows) that compress delivery time and raise quality across the Services organization.

• Prototype and build proofs-of-concept and production-grade solution accelerators hands-on — personally building the automations, scripts, and AI-enabled workflows that others will reuse, rather than only specifying them.

• Support translating emerging Cornerstone product capabilities — including new AI features — into productized, outcome-based delivery patterns that can be repeated across customers and industries.

• Establish reference architectures and solution blueprints that define “the right way” to deploy Cornerstone in complex, regulated environments.

Productize AI-Enabled, Repeatable Delivery

• Convert bespoke, high-effort delivery work into fixed, repeatable, productized offerings that scale delivery capacity without linearly scaling headcount.

• Embed AI into delivery workflows — designing agentic and automated approaches that augment consultants and support capacity and accelerate customer training-model adoption.

• Define and maintain the delivery frameworks, playbooks, and infrastructure templates that codify best practices and make them the default across teams.

• Measure the effectiveness of deployed IP — tracking adoption, cycle-time reduction, quality, and outcome impact — and iterate the assets based on field results.

Embed Across Services, Support & Partners

• Embed best practices across Professional Services delivery teams, ensuring standardized, high-quality execution on complex, high-profile engagements.

• Enable Support and Technical Account Management teams by building diagnostic tooling, resolution playbooks, and self-serve assets that improve post-go-live adoption and time-to-resolution.

• Mature the GSI / Partner Center of Excellence by productizing partner-led delivery frameworks — equipping GSIs and delivery partners to scale capacity while maintaining delivery quality and recurring-revenue integrity.

• Serve as the joint Product–Services architecture liaison, feeding field-tested IP and deployment learnings back into the product roadmap and influencing how new capabilities are built for deployability.

Deliver Outcomes in Context

• Deploy alongside strategic customers on the most complex, critical deployments — ensuring solutions are validated against real customer outcomes, not just delivered to spec.

• Partner with customers, Partners, and cross-functional stakeholders to gather requirements, define solution scope, and ensure each deployment achieves its intended business outcome in its specific operating context.

• Anticipate and mitigate technical and delivery risk proactively, surfacing patterns from the field and resolving root causes through reusable solutions rather than one-off fixes.

Lead, Coach & Set the Standard

• Act as a hands-on technical thought leader across the Services organization — mentoring and coaching Services Engineers, consultants, and partner resources through knowledge sharing, pairing, and reusable enablement.

• Strengthen the Sales-to-Services and Services-to-CSM/Support handoffs by ensuring solution designs and delivery assets carry cleanly across the customer lifecycle.

• Represent the organization at industry conferences, customer forums, and internal enablement events, and drive strategic alignment of solution IP with long-term scalability and recurring-revenue goals.

You’ve Got What It Takes If You Have...

• Proven experience: 8+ years in services/solutions engineering, solutions architecture, or technical consulting — with a strong track record of building reusable assets, accelerators, or platforms, not only delivering individual projects.

• Hands-on depth: Hands-on ability to design and build technical solutions — configuration, integrations, automation, scripting, and AI-enabled workflows — in enterprise SaaS environments.

• AI fluency: Demonstrated fluency with AI/automation tooling and the judgment to apply it responsibly to delivery workflows (e.g., agentic workflows, LLM-based automation, prompt/solution design).

• Productization mindset: Experience turning bespoke delivery work into repeatable, productized offerings, frameworks, or playbooks that other teams adopt.

• Outcome orientation: A relentless focus on customer outcomes achieved in context — not just on-time, on-scope delivery.

• Communication & influence: Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders, consultants, and partners without direct authority.

• Problem-solving: Ability to navigate complex, ambiguous problems in fast-paced enterprise environments and drive them to reusable solutions.

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field. Advanced degree is a plus.

• Travel: Willingness to travel to customer sites as needed.

Extra Dose of Awesome If You Have...

• Experience deploying HCM, talent management, or learning solutions (Cornerstone or comparable platforms).

• Experience building or scaling delivery through GSIs and system-integrator partners.

• Familiarity with regulated-industry deployments (federal/public sector, financial services, healthcare).

• Experience contributing field IP back into product roadmaps or joint Product–Services architecture models.

• Familiarity with delivery-management tooling (Smartsheet, MS Project) and integration/automation platforms.

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Equal Employment Opportunity has been, and will continue to be, a fundamental commitment at Cornerstone OnDemand. All qualified applicants are given consideration regardless of race, color, gender, age, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status, citizenship status, disability, veteran status, or any other protected class as provided in applicable Federal, State, or Local fair employment laws. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please contact us at [e-mail]