Principal AI Engineer

Principal AI Engineer

Description -

We're looking for a Principal “Forward Deployed Engineer” (FDE) to lead the way we evolve and develop AI systems solutions. This is a senior IC role that combines engineering with hands-on customer work with a focus of keeping traditional software aligned with real-world customer needs in the fast AI environment.

 

 This where this person will own the most complex, high-stakes customer engagements, set the standard for how FDE work gets done, and directly influence both product direction and engineering priorities. You operate with significant autonomy and your impact is felt across the company.

 

Responsibilities:

• Define and refine FDE best practices, playbooks, and tooling used across the team

• Collaborate with technical engineers to produce demos to help our sales, marketing and product efforts.

• Own end-to-end success of our most strategic customer deployments, from initial integration through long-term system evolution

• Serve as the senior technical voice in customer relationships, including executive-level engagements

• Identify systemic patterns across customer environments and translate them into actionable product and engineering roadmap input

• Debug and resolve complex AI system behavior in live production, including model reasoning failures, agentic drift, and edge-case breakdowns and customer situations.

• Influence hiring, scoping, and prioritization decisions in partnership with engineering, product, product marketing and customer engagements.  

Skills & Qualifications:

• 5+ years of engineering experience with a strong foundation in customers engagements.

• Deep hands-on experience with AI/ML systems such as LLMs, agentic workflows, model evaluation, and/or AI observability

• Demonstrated ability to lead complex, multi-stakeholder technical programs with minimal oversight

• Exceptional communicator across technical and non-technical audiences, including C-suite executives

• Proven pattern recognition across customer environments to surface insights that inform product strategy

Education and Experience Required:

• 7+ years of professional experience as an AI engineer, software engineer, or in a similar role.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field.

• Preferred (but not required): PhD in AI, ML, Data Science, or a related field.

• Experience with enterprise AI deployments at scale

• Background in model fine-tuning, RAG pipelines, or agentic system design

 

The pay range for this role is $147,050 to $230,850 USD annually with additional opportunities for pay in the form of bonus and/or equity (applies to United States of America candidates only). Pay varies by work location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Benefits:

HP offers a comprehensive benefits package for this position, including:

• Health insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Long term/short term disability insurance
• Employee assistance program
• Flexible spending account
• Life insurance
• Generous time off policies, including;
• 4-12 weeks fully paid parental leave based on tenure
• 11 paid holidays
• Additional flexible paid vacation and sick leave (US benefits overview)

The compensation and benefits information is accurate as of the date of this posting. The Company reserves the right to modify this information at any time, with or without notice, subject to applicable law.

Posting Expiration Date: 8/15/2026

Job -

Software

Schedule -

Full time

Shift -

No shift premium (United States of America)

Travel -

50%

Relocation -

Equal Opportunity Employer (EEO) - 

HP, Inc. provides equal employment opportunity to all employees and prospective employees, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, sexual orientation, age, disability, or status as a protected veteran, marital status, familial status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic predisposition or carrier status, uniformed service status, political affiliation or any other characteristic protected by applicable national, federal, state, and local law(s).

Please be assured that you will not be subject to any adverse treatment if you choose to disclose the information requested. This information is provided voluntarily. The information obtained will be kept in strict confidence.

For more information, review HP’s EEO Policy or read about your rights as an applicant under the law here: “Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal"