Senior Principal Software Engineer

Hobbsnews; Lowell (MA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare benefits

401(k) plan

Paid time off

Educational resources

Job summary

IBM's Data and AI team is driving digital-first execution and transformation, building AI Factory platforms for skills and agents, and delivering scalable AI across the enterprise. You will own end-to-end AI/ML systems, mentor peers, and partner with data, engineering, and product teams to bring AI features into production.

The role emphasizes robust design, governance, and observability of ML workloads, with focus on scale, reliability, and continuous learning in a dynamic environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field.
• 5+ years of software development experience with a focus on machine learning pipelines or machine learning applications or building ML platforms.
• Exceptional software engineering skills that lead to elegant and maintainable data platform.
• Proficiency in at least one general purpose programming language, eg. Python, Go, Java, Rust, etc.
• Past experience in building enterprise data platforms that have a high level of governance and compliance requirements.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and evolve ML pipelines that cover data ingestion, preprocessing, feature engineering, training, validation, deployment, and monitoring.
• Design, build, and evolve MCP server, Skills and Agents that enable and empower Red Hatters to do business efficiently.
• Translate research prototypes and models into production-quality code, ensuring robustness, scalability, and maintainability.
• Select appropriate algorithms and modeling techniques, perform hyperparameter tuning, and conduct comparative experimentation.
• Evaluate and validate model performance using advanced metrics and set up continuous validation/regression checks.
• Collaborate with software engineers, data engineers, and SRE/DevOps to integrate ML services into broader systems.
• Instrument models and systems with monitoring, logging, alerting, and automated healing or scaling mechanisms.
• Troubleshoot and resolve production incidents, root-cause errors, data drifts, performance regressions, or infrastructure issues.
• Mentor more junior engineers, lead code reviews, and help establish ML lifecycle and quality standards.
• Stay current with emerging ML research, frameworks, and tooling, and proactively propose improvements or experiments.

Skills

Python

Go

Java

Rust

ML pipelines

Education

Bachelor's Degree in CS/CE or related field

Tools

Snowflake

Fivetran

dbt

Airflow

Astronomer

Vector Databases

Job description

At IBM Finance & Operations, we are the backbone of IBM’s transformation driving efficiency, transparency, and smart decision-making across the business. Our teams provide the insight and discipline that guide strategy, ensure financial strength, and enable IBM to invest in innovation and growth. Working in Finance & Operations means combining analytical skills with collaboration and curiosity. You’ll partner with colleagues across functions and geographies, using data, technology, and process excellence to create solutions that improve performance and deliver measurable impact. IBM offers continuous learning, career development, and a culture that values diverse perspectives. Join us and be part of a global team that keeps IBM moving forward, while building your own future in a dynamic and evolving environment.

Your role and responsibilities

The Data And AI team is a highly focused effort to lead digital-first execution and transformation at Red Hat leveraging data & AI strategically for our customers, partners, and associates. The engineering team is focused on building and delivering strategic AI Factory platform for building Skills and Agents, designed to augment human capabilities, accelerate business workflows, and scale operations across the enterprise.
In this role, you'll take ownership of end-to-end AI/ML systems, champion best practices, and deliver impactful, production-grade models. You’ll work autonomously, mentor others, and collaborate with data, engineering, and product teams to bring AI features into production.
What you will do?

• Design, build, and evolve ML pipelines that cover data ingestion, preprocessing, feature engineering, training, validation, deployment, and monitoring.
• Design, build, and evolve MCP server, Skills and Agents that enable and empower Red Hatters to do business efficiently.
• Translate research prototypes and models into production-quality code, ensuring robustness, scalability, and maintainability.
• Select appropriate algorithms and modeling techniques, perform hyperparameter tuning, and conduct comparative experimentation.
• Evaluate and validate model performance using advanced metrics (e.g. ROC-AUC, precision/recall curves, calibration, fairness, drift) and set up continuous validation/regression checks.
• Collaborate with software engineers, data engineers, and SRE/DevOps to integrate ML services into broader systems.
• Instrument models and systems with monitoring, logging, alerting, and automated healing or scaling mechanisms.
• Troubleshoot and resolve production incidents, root-cause errors, data drifts, performance regressions, or infrastructure issues.
• Mentor more junior engineers, lead code reviews, and help establish ML lifecycle and quality standards.
• Stay current with emerging ML research, frameworks, and tooling, and proactively propose improvements or experiments.

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Bachelor's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field.

• 5+ years of software development experience with a focus on machine learning pipelines or machine learning applications or building ML platforms
• Exceptional software engineering skills that lead to elegant and maintainable data platform
• Proficiency in at least one general purpose programming language, eg. Python, Go, Java, Rust, etc.
• Loosely held strong opinions and perspectives that you kindly debate, defend, or change to ensure that the entire team moves as one
• Sets and resets the bar on all things quality, from code through to data, and everything in between
• Deep empathy for your users of your platform, leading to a constant focus on removing friction, increasing adoption, and delivering business results
• Prunes and prioritizes work in order to maximize your contributions and impact
• Bias for action and leading by example
• Past experience in building enterprise data platforms that have a high level of governance and compliance requirements

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Familiarity with open source or inner source development and processes
• Familiarity of data mesh architectural principles
• Experience with Snowflake, Fivetran, dbt, Airflow / Astronomer
• Deep hands on knowledge of Vector Databases, RAG Pipelines is a huge plus.

Personal qualities and communication

• Communication skills and experience in interacting with cross functional business and engineering teams
• Capability in undertaking business needs analysis in direct consultation
• Motivated with a passion for quality, learning and contributing to collective goals
• Excellent communication, presentation, and writing skills

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

The IBM Finance organization is responsible for driving enterprise performance and transformation. We are the financial stewards of IBM, delivering IBM’s financial strategy, developing new business models, and mitigating enterprise risk. Do you have a passion for creating business value? Join our team in accounting, financial planning, pricing, business controls, tax, treasury, business development (acquisitions & divestitures), and global financing.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

IBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to:

• - Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being
• - Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs
• - Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law
• - Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals
• - Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences

We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

IBM will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.

The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.