Lead Principal AI Software Engineer

Oracle•Nashville, TN

5h•$169,800 - $355,400

About The Position

The Senior Principal AI Software Engineer is a Senior Staff-level, hands-on technical leadership role responsible for defining, building, and operating next-generation AI systems on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). This person will set architecture and engineering direction for production-grade agentic AI platforms, autonomous workflows, scalable inference infrastructure, and enterprise AI applications used in large-scale, business-critical environments. This role requires a proven engineer who can translate ambiguous product and platform goals into durable technical strategy, lead multi-team execution without direct authority, and remain deeply hands-on in design, code, reviews, operations, and incident follow-up. The ideal candidate combines deep distributed systems experience with practical AI-native engineering, including orchestration of LLMs, tools, APIs, memory, retrieval, evaluation, guardrails, and cloud services. The expectation is to ship, scale, and operate reliable, secure, observable, and cost-aware AI platform systems while raising the technical bar for engineers across the organization. Only Oracle brings together the data, infrastructure, applications, and expertise to power everything from industry innovations to life-saving care. And with AI embedded across our products and services, we help customers turn that promise into a better future for all. Discover your potential at a company leading the way in AI and cloud solutions that impact billions of lives.

Requirements

Proven engineer with ability to translate ambiguous product and platform goals into durable technical strategy.
Ability to lead multi-team execution without direct authority.
Deep distributed systems experience.
Practical AI-native engineering experience, including orchestration of LLMs, tools, APIs, memory, retrieval, evaluation, guardrails, and cloud services.
Experience with production-grade agentic AI platforms, autonomous workflows, and scalable inference infrastructure.
Experience with enterprise AI applications used in large-scale, business-critical environments.
Experience in design, code, reviews, operations, and incident follow-up.

Responsibilities

Defining, building, and operating next-generation AI systems on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
Setting architecture and engineering direction for production-grade agentic AI platforms, autonomous workflows, scalable inference infrastructure, and enterprise AI applications.
Translating ambiguous product and platform goals into durable technical strategy.
Leading multi-team execution without direct authority.
Remaining deeply hands-on in design, code, reviews, operations, and incident follow-up.
Shipping, scaling, and operating reliable, secure, observable, and cost-aware AI platform systems.
Raising the technical bar for engineers across the organization.