Senior Principal AI Engineer

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, Data Engineering, or a related technical field; advanced degree preferred
• Significant industry experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, or AI platform development, including experience in senior or principal-level technical roles
• Proven track record designing and delivering production-scale AI or ML platforms
• Strong experience building distributed systems, APIs, microservices, and cloud-native applications
• Demonstrated experience operationalizing machine learning, generative AI, or agent-based solutions in enterprise environments
• Experience designing extensible platform capabilities that enable internal teams to build or integrate custom applications, tools, or services
• Deep understanding of software engineering best practices including testing, CI/CD, version control, code review, and system reliability
• Deep understanding of AI-native software engineering practices and experience establishing standards, governance, and best practices for the responsible use of AI coding assistants and software engineering agents across engineering teams
• Experience defining architecture, standards, and reusable services for large-scale enterprise environments
• Experience leading complex technical initiatives and influencing architecture across cross-functional teams
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to varied audiences
• Experience balancing experimentation speed with production engineering discipline, security, and maintainability
• Technical Skills Required
• AI/ML platform architecture
• Generative AI systems and large language model integration
• Agentic workflows and orchestration frameworks
• Multi-agent or autonomous agent system design
• Prompt engineering and prompt management
• Workflow orchestration and automation
• Agent lifecycle management
• Model evaluation, benchmarking, and performance measurement
• AI observability, tracing, monitoring, and logging
• API design and service integration
• Distributed systems and scalable backend engineering
• Cloud platforms and cloud-native deployment patterns
• Productionization of AI/ML services
• Reliability, latency, throughput, and cost optimization
• CI/CD pipelines and DevOps/MLOps practices
• Secure software development and enterprise platform controls
• Preferred Skills
• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related discipline
• Experience with enterprise AI platforms, developer platforms, or internal tooling ecosystems
• Experience building frameworks or platforms that support bring-your-own-component or extensible developer patterns
• Demonstrated focus on developer experience, including designing self-service onboarding, SDKs, CLIs, sandboxes, templates, and documentation that reduce friction and accelerate time-to-first-deployment for internal builders
• Familiarity with model gateways, retrieval-augmented generation, and evaluation frameworks
• Experience implementing AI governance, responsible AI controls, and compliance-oriented technical solutions
• Knowledge of vector databases, knowledge retrieval systems, and orchestration layers for intelligent applications
• Experience in regulated industries such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, or life sciences
• Strong mentoring and technical leadership experience in highly collaborative environments
• Ability to assess emerging AI technologies and translate them into practical platform capabilities
• #LI-HYBRID
• At Vertex, we embrace continuous learning and encourage employees to stay informed on advances in AI, technology, automation, and industry trends. We seek talent who bring an external perspective, demonstrate curiosity and sound judgment, and thoughtfully adopt new capabilities that improve decision-making, drive innovation, increase efficiency, and help deliver better outcomes for patients.
• Pay Range:
• Disclosure Statement:
• The range provided is based on what we believe is a reasonable estimate for the base salary pay range for this job at the time of posting. This role is eligible for an annual bonus and annual equity awards. Some roles may also be eligible for overtime pay, in accordance with federal and state requirements. Actual base salary pay will be based on a number of factors, including skills, competencies, experience, and other job-related factors permitted by law.
• At Vertex, our Total Rewards offerings also include inclusive market-leading benefits to meet our employees wherever they are in their career, financial, family and wellbeing journey while providing flexibility and resources to support their growth and aspirations. From medical, dental and vision benefits to generous paid time off (including a week-long company shutdown in the Summer and the Winter), educational assistance programs including student loan repayment, a generous commuting subsidy, matching charitable donations, 401(k) and so much more.
• Company Information
• Vertex is a global biotechnology company that invests in scientific innovation.
• Vertex is committed to equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination for all employees and qualified applicants without regard to a person's race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, or any characteristic protected under applicable law. Vertex is an E-Verify Employer in the United States. Vertex will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities, in accordance with applicable law.
• Any applicant requiring an accommodation in connection with the hiring process and/or to perform the essential functions of the position for which the applicant has applied should make a request to the recruiter or hiring manager, or contact Talent Acquisition at [email protected]