Staff / Principal Engineer — AI-Native Engineering

TechTree; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

TechTree seeks a Staff/Principal Engineer to lead an AI-native engineering transformation at a global insurer. This is a hands-on technical leadership role, shaping complex solutions and embedding new ways of working across delivery teams.

Hybrid role in Jersey City, NJ or Philadelphia, PA. You will own the technical direction of a major domain, mentor engineers, and apply AI to engineering workflows, test automation, and legacy understanding.

Qualifications

• Hands-on software engineering and solution architecture experience.
• Applied experience with AI-assisted/agentic development.
• Mentor and lift other engineers across teams.
• Insurance, banking, payments or high-scale digital product background is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead solution architecture for complex, business-critical enterprise systems.
• Embed agentic and AI-assisted engineering into delivery teams.
• Apply AI to legacy understanding, test automation and engineering workflows.
• Coach engineers hands-on and influence standards without formal authority.
• At Principal level, own the technical direction of a major business domain.

Skills

Hands-on software engineering

Solution architecture

AI-assisted / agentic development

Product engineering mindset

Mentoring engineers

Job description

Staff / Principal Engineer - lead AI-native engineering transformation at a global insurer. Hybrid, Jersey City, NJ or Philadelphia, PA.

Our client is a global insurance leader running complex, business-critical systems at enormous scale. It is moving its entire engineering organisation to an AI-native model - from design and development through testing, deployment and operations. The tooling and foundations are in place; the challenge now is scaling them across the organisation.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role: not pure IC, not line management. You'll shape complex solutions, embed new ways of working and act as a multiplier across delivery teams.

What You'll Do

• Lead solution architecture for complex, business-critical enterprise systems
• Embed agentic and AI-assisted engineering into real delivery teams
• Apply AI to legacy understanding, test automation and engineering workflows
• Coach engineers hands-on and influence standards without formal authority
• At Principal level, own the technical direction of a major business domain

What We're Looking For

• Deep, current hands-on software engineering and solution architecture
• Real applied experience with AI-assisted / agentic development - not just commentary
• Product engineering mindset tied to customer journeys and business outcomes
• Proven ability to mentor and lift other engineers
• Insurance, banking, payments or high-scale digital product background is a plus - insurance is not required

Interview process: 3-5 stages, including a live case-based architecture discussion. No live coding test.

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