Principal AI Engineer

Principal AI Engineer - Applied AI & Automation

Location

| Sydney (Hybrid)

Comp

| $220,000 – $260,000 + Super + Package

Focus

| Agentic AI, Automation, LLM Systems, Product & Platform Integration

We’re partnering with a high-growth financial platform investing heavily into AI across both its core product and internal operations.

The business has already mapped out 60+ high-impact AI use cases across areas such as customer experience, fraud detection, operational workflows, and internal decision-making and is now looking for a senior hire to lead the execution.

This is a rare opportunity to step into a role where AI is not experimental, but a core part of the roadmap, with real backing from leadership and a clear mandate to deliver.

About the Role

As a Principal AI Engineer, you’ll operate at the intersection of engineering, product, and strategy, responsible for identifying high-value opportunities and delivering production-grade AI systems that are embedded across the organisation. This is a hands-on role with significant ownership, combining system design, AI engineering, and cross-functional collaboration.

What You’ll Be Working On

• Designing and building LLM-powered applications, including RAG pipelines and agent-based systems
• Embedding AI into core product workflows and transaction systems
• Developing internal AI tooling and automation frameworks across operations, support, and finance
• Identifying and prioritising automation opportunities across the business
• Translating business problems into scalable AI-driven solutions
• Ensuring systems are reliable, observable, and safe in a regulated environment

What You’ll Do

• Build and deploy production-grade AI and automation systems
• Work closely with product, engineering, and business teams to shape the AI roadmap
• Design end-to-end systems from problem discovery through to deployment and iteration
• Create reusable frameworks, tooling, and patterns to accelerate AI adoption
• Evaluate and improve AI system performance, accuracy, and reliability
• Contribute to responsible AI practices, including safety, monitoring, and governance

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years of experience in software engineering or AI/ML engineering
• Strong experience building and shipping production systems used by real users
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, RAG architectures, or agent-based systems
• Strong coding ability (Python preferred) and solid backend engineering fundamentals
• Experience working with cloud environments (AWS or similar)
• Ability to operate across engineering, product, and business stakeholders
• Strong system design and problem-solving skills

You’ll Likely Thrive Here If

• You enjoy building real systems, not just prototypes
• You think in workflows, automation, and business impact
• You’re comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
• You like combining technical depth with strategic thinking
• You want to define how AI gets applied across an organisation, not just contribute to a small part of it

Nice to Have

• Experience in financial services or regulated environments
• Exposure to AI evaluation, monitoring, and model performance frameworks
• Experience building internal platforms or developer tooling
• Familiarity with compliance frameworks (e.g. ISO 27001)

What’s On Offer

• Competitive salary + bonus + long-term upside
• Flexible hybrid working
• High ownership, low bureaucracy environment
• Direct impact on how AI is applied across a scaling business
• Opportunity to build systems that sit at the core of real-world financial infrastructure

If you're open to exploring, feel free to reach out or apply directly | ***email_hidden***