Principal AI Engineer (Remote)

Rula•Los Angeles, CA

21d•Remote

About The Position

At Rula, this role owns the AI foundation that determines how, and how well, AI shows up across mental healthcare. The focus isn’t on prototypes or isolated features, but on building durable, production-grade generative AI systems that directly power patient engagement, provider workflows, and clinical operations at scale. You’ll operate where architecture, applied research, and real-world constraints meet. The work includes designing core AI platforms, setting technical standards for safety, reliability, and performance, and making principald decisions about how advanced AI is introduced into a regulated, high-stakes care environment. The goal is simple but hard: make AI genuinely useful in clinical contexts, without compromising trust or outcomes. This is a deeply hands-on role with real technical ownership. You’ll define system architecture, unblock complex engineering problems, and act as a technical multiplier for other engineers working across product surfaces. Success here means creating foundations that others can build on confidently and that hold up under scale, scrutiny, and real patient impact. The opportunity is less about chasing the frontier for its own sake and more about shaping how AI responsibly becomes part of everyday mental healthcare, setting direction not just for what we build next, but for how AI evolves inside the care ecosystem over time.

Requirements

10+ years of software engineering, including 7+ years of experience with Public Cloud (AWS, GCP, etc.), 5+ years designing and scaling distributed systems.
5+ years of deep experience in Python and at least one backend language (preferably JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, or Go)
2+ years of proven track record building AI-powered products at scale, including hands-on experience with foundation models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, Gemini, etc.).
2+ years of strong experience in LLM integration patterns (RAG, function calling, agents, memory routing, etc.), or AI orchestration frameworks (eg. LangChain, LlamaIndex, DSPy, Haystack), or vector databases (eg. Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, Milvus).
3+ years in working with MLOps, data pipelines, evaluation, and observability systems for continuous model improvement.

Nice To Haves

Experience architecting secure and compliant AI solutions in regulated environments (HIPAA, GDPR, etc.).
Familiarity with human-in-the-loop systems and clinical decision support frameworks.
Experience designing evaluation pipelines for human alignment, factual accuracy, or model interpretability.
Contributions to open-source AI frameworks or applied research in NLP, healthcare AI, or GenAI safety.
Experience contributing to early-stage team growth (0 → 1)
Experience leading or mentoring engineering teams in AI, ML platform, or applied research domains.

Benefits

100% remote work environment: Working hours to support a healthy work-life balance, ensuring you can meet both professional and personal commitments (must be based in United States, currently not hiring in Hawaii)
Attractive pay and benefits: Full transparency of pay ranges regardless of where you live in the United States
Comprehensive health benefits: Medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and FSA/HSA
401(k) plan access: Start saving for your future
Generous time-off policies: Including 2 company-wide shutdown weeks each year for self-care (for most employees)
Paid parental leave: Available for all parents, including birthing, non-birthing, adopting, and fostering
Employee Assistance Program (EAP): Support for your mental and physical health
New hire home office stipend: Set up your workspace for success
Quarterly department stipend: Fund team-building activities or in-person gatherings
Wellness events and lunch & learns: Explore a variety of engaging topics
Community and employee resource groups: Participate in groups that celebrate employee identity and lived experiences, fostering a sense of community and belonging for all