Principal Software Engineer - Applied AI

Principal Software Engineer | Applied AI 📍 Sydney or Melbourne (Hybrid) 🚀 Up to $280k + Super + ESOP + additional benefits Some roles accelerate your career. Others fundamentally change its trajectory. Two years from now, every engineer will be able to say they experimented with LLMs. Not many will be able to say they helped define how frontier AI is deployed into production at enterprise scale. This is an opportunity to become one of them. You'll join a small team of exceptional engineers operating at the forefront of applied AI, solving technical problems that simply didn't exist six months ago. Working alongside ambitious global organisations, you'll design, build and deploy production AI systems that are reshaping how businesses operate. Behind the scenes, the organisation works in close partnership with one of the world's leading frontier AI labs. That means early access to emerging capabilities, direct collaboration on some of the most ambitious enterprise AI programmes anywhere in the world, and the opportunity to work on problems long before the rest of the industry catches up. You’re at the forefront but this isn’t research. In many ways, it's harder. Research proves something is possible. Your job is to make it work. Securely, reliably and at enterprise scale for organisations that are betting their future on AI. If your ambition is to become recognised as one of the best Applied AI engineers in the industry, it's difficult to imagine a better environment. Why this role is different Most engineering roles eventually become predictable where architecture patterns repeat and the technical challenges become incremental. The biggest problems become organisational rather than engineering. This role resets that curve. You'll work in exceptionally small teams, typically alongside just one or two other engineers, where every technical decision has a visible impact. You'll own problems from the very first customer conversation through to production deployment, combining deep software engineering with modern AI to build systems that genuinely transform how organisations operate. There are no ticket factories, no endless planning cycles, no spending six months debating architecture before writing a line of code. Just difficult, meaningful engineering problems solved by exceptionally capable people. What you'll work on Every project is different, but they all have one thing in common: they're pushing the boundaries of what's possible with today's AI capabilities. You could find yourself: Designing production-gradeMulti-agent systems.Building AI applications around frontier language models.Developing evaluation frameworks and observability tooling.Creating robust RAG architectures for enterprise environments.Integrating AI into complex production systems handling millions of users.Solving greenfield engineering challenges where there are no established patterns to follow.Working directly with technical leaders inside some of the world's most ambitious organisations. Most projects move from concept to production in around 12 weeks, giving you exposure to a breadth of technical challenges that would typically take years to accumulate elsewhere. Why exceptional engineers join This isn't a place to hide inside a large engineering organisation. It's a place where exceptional engineers become even better. You'll be surrounded by people who care deeply about software craftsmanship. Engineers who still enjoy writing code. Who obsess over elegant architecture, clean abstractions and thoughtful engineering decisions. The pace is fast, the standards are high, and the problems are genuinely difficult. You'll leave every project a better engineer than when you started. And perhaps most importantly, you'll build a portfolio of production AI systems that very few engineers anywhere in the market will have had the opportunity to work on. Who tends to thrive here The engineers who are most successful in this environment have one thing in common: they're exceptional software engineers first. Most have spent 8-15 years building complex production systems before moving into applied AI. They're still deeply hands-on, naturally curious, and energised by solving difficult engineering problems rather than managing large teams. They care about architecture, software craftsmanship and building systems that last. They enjoy working directly with customers to understand the problem before writing a single line of code, and they're comfortable taking ownership from the first conversation through to production deployment. They're also humble enough to know that nobody has all the answers yet. The field is moving quickly, and the best engineers are the ones who enjoy figuring things out. You'll likely bring experience in... Whilst we're more interested in engineering capability than specific technologies, you'll probably have experience with many of the following: Building production software in PythonDesigning and deploying production AI or LLM applicationsAgentic AI and orchestration frameworksRetrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)AI evaluation, testing and observabilityModern cloud platforms and distributed systemsWorking directly with customers or stakeholders to solve complex business problemsLeading technical direction whilst remaining hands-on This probably isn't the right role if... You're early in your software engineering career and still developing your technical foundations.Most of your AI experience comes from personal projects rather than commercial production systems.You'd rather fine-tune models or work in AI research than build software around frontier models.You prefer well-defined requirements over ambiguous, greenfield engineering challenges.You enjoy managing engineering teams more than writing code.You're looking to own a single product or platform for the next few years. We're looking for engineers who want to solve a different problem every few months, work directly with ambitious customers, and help define what great applied AI engineering looks like. The opportunity There are very few opportunities where you'll genuinely become a stronger engineer simply by the people you work alongside. This is one of them. If you're already operating at Senior, Staff or Principal level and want to spend the next few years solving some of the hardest engineering problems in applied AI, alongside exceptional engineers, with early access to frontier AI capabilities, and on projects that will shape how AI is deployed into the world's leading organisations, apply here or get in touch with me at jon@salientgroup.com.au