Principal Software Engineer (Data & AI)

TL;DR

Principal Software Engineer (Data & AI): Driving architecture and technical strategy for the Data domain, spanning transactional sources to analytical insights with an accent on OLAP and AI capabilities. Focus on architecting infrastructure for LLM orchestration, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and real-time model inference at scale.

Location: Remote (UK). Must have the right to work in the UK; no visa sponsorship is available.

Salary: £100,000 - £120,000

Company

hirify.global provides MIS and school management tools to over 12,000 schools, focusing on reducing staff burnout and leveraging data for educational progress.

What you will do

• Define and evangelize target architectures bridging transactional, analytical, and AI systems.
• Lead the end-to-end data lifecycle, from OLTP schema design to OLAP governance and analytics.
• Architect future infrastructure for LLM orchestration, RAG, and real-time model inference.
• Mentor Technical Leads and Senior Engineers on architectural and engineering excellence.
• Drive the shift to an AI-First engineering approach to increase productivity and product value.
• Partner with Product Directors to translate product vision into technical deliverables.

Requirements

• Extensive experience in data architecture and delivering outcomes across OLAP domains.
• Strong proficiency in data modelling (Star, Medallion) and cloud-native distributed systems like Snowflake.
• Practical knowledge of DataOps, CI/CD for data, and orchestration tools (AWS, Debezium, Git, IaC).
• Proven ability to communicate and influence both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Understanding of how AI-first engineering transforms the data ecosystem.
• Existing right to work in the UK is required (no visa sponsorship provided).

Nice to have

• Experience in AI/ML Engineering and MLOps, including model deployment and monitoring.
• Knowledge of federated learning or privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs).
• Direct experience with LLM Ops, including prompt engineering at scale and token cost optimization.

Culture & Benefits

• Flexible working arrangements and a dedicated wellbeing team.
• 32 days holiday plus Bank Holidays.
• Comprehensive health benefits including AIG Smart Health (virtual GP) and Bupa Dental Insurance.
• Life Assurance (3x annual salary) and Salary sacrifice Pension via Scottish Widows.
• Dedicated professional development training budget (CPD courses, upskilling).
• Enhanced maternity (20 weeks full pay) and paternity (6 weeks full pay) leave.

Hiring process

• Phone screen.
• First stage interview.
• Second stage interview.