Principal Applied AI Engineer

Appian Corporation•McLean, VA

10d•$200,000 - $350,000•Onsite

About The Position

Appian is seeking a Principal Applied AI Engineer to lead the engineering of software that drives AI automation for the world's largest enterprises. This role is based at our headquarters in McLean, Virginia, and requires a commitment to in-person collaboration, with employees expected to be in the office 5 days a week. The Appian Engineering team works across the full depth of our platform, from foundational layers to AI capabilities, in a collaborative, fast-paced environment focused on technical precision, continuous learning, and high code quality. As a Principal Applied AI Engineer, you will be the technical linchpin for applied AI, bringing expertise in designing and operating production LLM systems and influencing engineering direction. You will drive the design and delivery of high-complexity AI systems, set the technical bar for the team, and lead engineers towards solutions for Enterprise-Grade Orchestration.

Requirements

Minimum of a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science or a related technical/analytical discipline. (Equivalent experience is not accepted in lieu of a degree).
10+ years of relevant software development experience with a BS (or 8+ years of experience paired with a Master of Science in Computer Science or related field).
Deep hands-on experience designing and operating production LLM systems.
Demonstrated expertise across code generation, agents, retrieval, structured generation, tool use, model routing, evaluation, and observability.
Demonstrated experience using AI coding assistants and a strong ability to evaluate, coach others on, and selectively apply AI-generated code in a production engineering context.
Strong distributed-systems, API, security, and reliability foundations, with the ability to contribute meaningfully at a senior individual contributor level within that space.
Demonstrated ability to drive technical decisions and shape engineering practices beyond a single team or project scope.
Proven experience developing, optimizing, and maintaining a high-volume, mission-critical production service environment.
Exceptional ability to communicate highly technical architectures verbally, visually, and in writing to diverse engineering audiences.

Nice To Haves

Experience with compilers, program analysis, formal or executable specifications, or legacy modernization is strongly preferred.
Experience with enterprise platforms such as Salesforce or ServiceNow.

Responsibilities

Architect, build, and optimize high-performance production LLM systems while maintaining a strong personal technical presence on the team.
Spearhead strategic technological changes and champion code refactoring efforts to keep the core Appian codebase — and the AI systems built on it — cutting-edge, modern, and performant.
Use AI coding tools fluently as a force multiplier: generating, reviewing, and critically evaluating AI-assisted code to ship faster without compromising quality or correctness.
Drive technical story breakdowns, acceptance criteria, and architectural design across complex, multi-tier and AI-powered application layers — from feature scoping through implementation.
Build prototypes to de-risk novel AI approaches and establish the standards others build on.
Manage product availability, latency, scalability, and efficiency by engineering deep reliability into our core software systems and performing advanced system tuning.
Radiate development best practices across the department, perform meticulous code reviews on design and implementation, and build automation frameworks to prevent problem recurrence.
Actively coach and mentor engineers at multiple levels, identify and close skill gaps on the team, and take ownership of accelerating the technical growth of those around you.
Share your expert domain knowledge regularly across the department, building a reputation as a vital resource and publishing high-quality content to Engineering’s permanent documentation site.