Principal/Staff Software Engineer (AI)

TL;DR

Principal/Staff Software Engineer (AI): Leading the technical strategy and architecture of a large-scale AI chat agent platform supporting 20M+ users with an accent on scalability, reliability, and distributed systems. Focus on designing fault-tolerant APIs, optimizing high-throughput real-time workloads, and mentoring senior engineering talent.

Location: Hybrid in Lausanne, Switzerland. Relocation package provided for candidates coming from another country.

Company

hirify.global is a leader in digital employee experience management software, providing IT leaders with insights to proactively optimize the digital workplace for millions of employees.

What you will do

• Define the technical vision and architectural strategy for the AI chat backend platform.
• Lead the design of highly scalable, low-latency distributed systems supporting 20M+ global users.
• Partner with product, infrastructure, and AI/ML teams to align engineering strategy with business objectives.
• Architect and deliver fault-tolerant APIs and services capable of handling real-time workloads.
• Mentor senior engineers and establish high technical bars for design patterns and coding standards.
• Ensure security, compliance, and cost-efficiency are embedded in the architectural design.

Requirements

• 10+ years of backend engineering experience, including 3+ years in Staff or Principal roles.
• Proven success scaling backend systems for tens of millions of users or high-throughput real-time systems.
• Expertise in Java (17+), Python, or Node.js, with a strong background in concurrency and high availability.
• Hands-on experience with cloud-native architectures (AWS), Kubernetes/ECS, and containerized deployments.
• Deep understanding of API design, streaming data, and event-driven systems.
• Must be able to work in a hybrid model in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Nice to have

• Knowledge of Java frameworks like Spring Boot or Micronaut.
• Advanced expertise in Kafka, Pulsar, Flink, or Spark.
• Experience productionizing LLM-powered systems (RAG, fine-tuning, evaluation frameworks).
• Prior ownership of multi-region or global-scale deployments.
• Familiarity with GitOps, Terraform, and CI/CD practices.

Culture & Benefits

• Permanent contract with a competitive compensation package.
• Hybrid work model with a beautiful office overlooking Lake Geneva.
• Unlimited paid time off in addition to 25 days of standard holidays.
• Flexible working hours and 3 company-paid volunteer days.
• Free on-site fitness center and reimbursement for public transport (half-fare card).
• Support for personal growth, including 50% reimbursement for French classes.