Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems (AI)

TL;DR

Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems (AI): Leading the architecture and technical direction of production AI agents that reason, retrieve context, and execute complex workflows with an accent on scalable agent architectures and reliability. Focus on designing task decomposition, tool routing, and robust evaluation frameworks to turn ambiguous problems into AI-native experiences.

Location: Palo Alto, California, United States. Must be based in or living in the Bay Area.

Salary: $400,000 – $550,000 per year

Company

hirify.global is a Public Benefit Corporation creating Pi, the world's first emotionally intelligent AI designed to empower people's potential.

What you will do

• Build production AI agents capable of planning, context retrieval, tool usage, and failure recovery.
• Design agent architectures for task decomposition, memory, state management, and safe execution.
• Develop evaluation and observability systems for tool-call accuracy, hallucination resistance, and latency.
• Integrate AI agents with APIs, SaaS tools, and enterprise systems.
• Implement guardrails, structured outputs, and human-in-the-loop controls to improve system reliability.
• Mentor senior engineers and establish technical standards for the next generation of intelligent agents.

Requirements

• 10+ years of engineering experience, with 3+ years in staff/principal roles.
• 2+ years of experience building production-grade agentic or LLM-powered systems for real customers.
• Proficiency in Python or TypeScript.
• Strong backend fundamentals (APIs, databases, queues, cloud infrastructure).
• Experience with tool/function calling, embeddings, retrieval, and prompt design.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a related field.

Nice to have

• Experience with LangGraph, LlamaIndex, OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face, or vLLM.
• Expertise in multi-agent systems, agent memory, or browser automation.
• Knowledge of building eval pipelines and AI safety systems.
• Experience in early-stage, high-growth, or zero-to-one product environments.

Culture & Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance options.
• 401k matching program.
• Unlimited paid time off.
• Parental leave and flexible arrangements for caregivers.
• Visa support for international employees living in the Bay Area.