Principal AI Engineer

DrFirst Inc.•,

22h•$175,000 - $200,000•Remote

About The Position

DrFirst is building an agentic ecosystem at scale. In the last 90 days we have shipped production AI systems across HR, Finance, Legal, and Marketing, automating hundreds of hours of manual work monthly and delivering measurable business impact. This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You architect and build production AI automation systems from discovery to deployment. You work directly with department leaders to map workflows and ship tools that augment their work. The split is 80% individual-contributor engineering and 20% servant leadership and mentorship. You build. You own technical architecture decisions. As the team scales from 2 to 5-6 engineers over 18 months, you mentor through code review and pairing. You also teach non-technical department leaders how to use AI tools, translate technical concepts for executives, and run discovery sessions that extract workflows from stakeholders. Building stays your primary focus.

Requirements

8+ years building production systems end-to-end (backend, frontend, integrations, infrastructure).
Staff/Principal Engineer or Tech Lead experience, owning technical decisions on production systems.
Shipped SaaS products with OAuth2, multi-tenancy, audit trails, and enterprise compliance.
Deep AI/ML experience: production systems using LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock) and agent frameworks.
Production Python: FastAPI, Pydantic, httpx, pytest (1000+ test suite experience).
Production TypeScript/React: Next.js App Router, server components, Okta/NextAuth SSO, Playwright testing.
AWS and Kubernetes: EKS operations, GitLab CI/CD, ArgoCD, Helm, Secrets Manager.
Enterprise security patterns: Zscaler proxies, SSL certificates, Kubernetes networking, JWKS verification.
Healthcare or regulated industry experience (HIPAA, SOC 2, or similar frameworks).
Strong communication skills: run discovery sessions with non-technical stakeholders, explain security trade-offs to executives, and write architecture docs department leaders can follow.
Servant leadership mindset: remove blockers for others, teach through questions not directives, and make stakeholders successful first.
Thrives in organized chaos: 15 stakeholders, 6 systems, 3 sprints in flight.
Bias toward shipping: “good enough to get feedback” beats “perfect in 3 months.”
Highly collaborative: challenges ideas constructively and welcomes being challenged.
Active, daily use of AI engineering tools (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, or similar).
Experience with Claude (Anthropic) is highly valued, whether through Claude.ai, Claude Code CLI, API integration, or AWS Bedrock.
At least one automation you have built that eliminated hours of manual work, ideally using LLM APIs.
Comfort teaching others to use AI tools effectively through pairing and code review.

Nice To Haves

Led small teams (2-5 people) through technical mentorship or tech lead roles.
US-based (US Central time zone preferred; Poland also considered).
Built agentic systems: agent coordination, scheduled routines, and feedback loops.
MCP (Model Context Protocol) experience: custom connectors for enterprise systems.
Active contributor to AI/ML communities (papers, open source, conference talks).
Teaching through code: strong code review skills, pairing experience, and documentation focus.
Experience teaching non-technical users through workshops, training sessions, and business-user documentation.

Responsibilities

Own the technical implementation of department sprints.
Design and build Python/FastAPI backends connecting to enterprise APIs (HRIS, ERP, CRM, finance systems, project management).
Build Next.js/React frontends with Okta SSO, role-based access control, and audit trails.
Design agent coordination systems, skill discovery hubs, agent registries, and workflow orchestration.
Navigate Zscaler proxies, VPNs, SSL certificates, Kubernetes pod networking, DynamoDB, and AWS Bedrock.
Write Playwright end-to-end tests before production deploy and maintain a 1000+ test suite with visual regression baselines.
Ship via GitLab CI/CD to AWS EKS (Kubernetes, ArgoCD, Helm, Secrets Manager) and diagnose pod restarts and liveness probe issues.
Debug event loop blocking, convert synchronous I/O to async, and optimize CPU-bound operations.
Partner with the CISO on PII/PHI de-identification, least privilege, and per-user OAuth2.
Debug authentication flows, token expiration, API rate limits, and health check failures.
Ship 3-5 production tools in parallel within each sprint, deploying multiple times per day based on stakeholder feedback.
Guide 2-3 engineers through code reviews and pairing.
Teach department leaders how to use AI tools effectively.
Translate technical decisions for non-technical executives.
Run discovery sessions with department VPs.
Teach Finance/HR/Legal leaders how to prompt AI tools.
Build interfaces non-technical users can modify.
Explain security trade-offs to executives and translate “OAuth2 delegation” into “everyone sees only their own data.”
Clear obstacles for team members, escalate infrastructure issues, and coordinate across departments.
Document patterns so others can self-serve and write playbooks department heads can follow without engineering help.

Benefits

Competitive compensation, with a base salary of $175,000 - $200,000 (Exact compensation may vary based on skills and experience)
Eligible for Company Performance-based Bonus Program, based on individual and company performance
Medical, dental, and vision insurance
401K eligible after 3 months of employment, with 50% company match up to first 5% of salary contributed to the plan with a 3-year vesting schedule
HSA for eligible employees enrolled in the HDHP, with a generous company contribution up to $500 for individual coverage and $1000 for family coverage per year
100% company paid short and long-term disability, AD&D, and group life insurance
Accrued annual paid time off (PTO) of 18 days for the first 3 years of service, increasing thereafter and 7 paid holiday days
Employee Assistance Program
Continuing Education funds up to $1500 annually for eligible programs after 1 year of service
Voluntary benefits including FSA, Hospital indemnity, Accident and Critical Illness insurances