Principal AI Engineer

Principal AI Engineer – AI / LLMPortugal | Remote | Competitive Salary + BenefitsAre you a senior AI Engineer looking to work on a genuinely ambitious AI product?We're working with a high-growth global technology company that is building the next generation of AI-powered learning experiences. They're looking for a Principal AI Engineer to join a high-ownership engineering team and help build an intelligent AI tutor capable of delivering personalised, adaptive learning at scale.The OpportunityThe team is tackling a fundamental challenge in education: how can we replicate the effectiveness of one-to-one tutoring for millions of learners?You'll work on the core AI system behind an AI-powered learning experience, building technology that can understand users, adapt to their needs and help them move from simply acquiring knowledge to actually applying it.This is a highly technical role spanning LLMs, agentic AI, prompt architectures, evaluation and production software engineering.What You'll Be DoingBuild and evolve complex LLM-based systems, including prompt architectures, agentic workflows and real-time adaptive AI behaviours.Design and implement AI evaluation frameworks, developing meaningful metrics to measure model reliability and learning effectiveness.Productionise AI capabilities within scalable, maintainable software and integrate them with platform, content and user-experience systems.Experiment with emerging AI models and techniques, rapidly prototyping and taking successful approaches into production.Develop robust AI systems with appropriate monitoring, testing, safety guardrails and observability.Work closely with Product, Engineering, Education and Content teams to translate learning objectives into technical solutions.Provide technical leadership and mentorship, helping shape engineering standards and approaches across the team.What We're Looking ForWe're interested in engineers who have:1+ years' experience building complex LLM-based systems in a professional environment.Strong understanding of prompt engineering and agentic AI workflows.Experience developing LLM evaluation methods, metrics or experimentation frameworks.Strong Python and software engineering fundamentals.Experience designing and deploying production AI systems.Good understanding of cloud infrastructure and CI/CD.A strong interest in AI research and emerging model capabilities.The ability to think beyond the model itself, considering product, user experience, content and system behaviour.Experience working effectively in high-autonomy, cross-functional environments.Why Join?This is an opportunity to work on an AI product where the technical challenge goes far beyond building another chatbot or LLM wrapper.You'll be helping shape an AI system designed to personalise learning in real time, with the potential to impact millions of users globally.You'll join an international, high-performing technology business offering:🌍 Remote working from Portugal💰 Competitive salary and benefits🧠 Annual learning and development budget🌎 International company retreats💻 Annual equipment budget🚀 High-autonomy, high-impact engineering environment🤖 Opportunity to work directly with cutting-edge AI technologiesInterested?If you're a Senior / Staff / Principal AI Engineer with strong hands-on experience building LLM systems and you're interested in working on the future of AI-powered learning, we'd love to hear from you.Apply now or message me directly for a confidential conversation.