Principal AI Engineer (AI Orchestration & Retrieval)

TL;DR

Principal AI Engineer (AI Orchestration & Retrieval): Designing the orchestration and abstraction layers that connect LLMs to tools, data, and sub-agents, including MCP servers and end-to-end RAG pipelines. Focus on building multi-agent patterns, retrieval quality and evaluation, and production-grade observability, safety, and access control for agentic workflows.

Location: Remote (USA)

Salary: $159,600.00 - $207,500.00 (US Base Salary Range)

Company

hirify.global builds enterprise AI systems and platforms.

What you will do

• Design orchestration and abstraction layers for a central AI system connecting LLMs, tools, data, and sub-agents.
• Design, build, and operate MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers and define standards for tool definitions, exposure, and versioning.
• Define tool-surface strategy and multi-agent patterns, including when to use specialized sub-agents vs direct tool exposure.
• Build retrieval (RAG) systems: chunking, embeddings, vector stores, hybrid/keyword search, re-ranking, and context assembly.
• Implement routing, context-window management, and memory strategies for agentic workflows.
• Define evaluation and observability/tracing for orchestration and retrieval quality, including latency and cost; implement safety, guardrails, authentication, and access control.

Requirements

• Location: Must be based in the United States
• 12+ years of experience in software/AI engineering with hands-on work building LLM orchestration, agents, and retrieval systems.
• Deep hands-on experience with LLM orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel) and agentic patterns.
• Direct experience building MCP servers and tool/function-calling integrations.
• Deep experience with retrieval/RAG including chunking strategies, embeddings, vector databases, hybrid search, and re-ranking.
• Experience with evaluation and observability for agentic and retrieval systems; ability to set strategy while staying hands-on in code.

Culture & Benefits

• Remote work based in the USA.
• US base salary range of $159,600.00–$207,500.00.
• May be eligible for the Vertex Bonus Plan (VOB), role-specific commission/bonus, and/or equity grants.
• Compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and geographic location; pay will not fall below applicable local minimum wage.

Hiring process

• Interviews focused on orchestration/retrieval design, MCP/tool integration, and evaluation/observability practices.
• Technical discussions to assess hands-on coding depth and ability to set standards while building.