Principal Architect

Description

Principal Architect Location: Washington, DC About the Role We are seeking a Principal Architect to drive the design, development, and deployment of our agentic AI products in a fast-paced, collaborative, extremely high-visibility environment. In this role, you will lead a team of 50+ engineers, providing both strategic and technical guidance. You’ll be responsible for high-impact architectural decisions, cross-company collaboration, and executive level engagements. What You’ll Do - Team Leadership: Lead and mentor a high-performing engineering team of 80+, fostering a culture of technical excellence and ownership. - Technical Direction: Guide your team through complex challenges involving LLMs, AI agents, and large-scale distributed systems. - Executive Stakeholder Engagement: Represent Scale AI in high-stakes negotiations and strategic discussions with senior external partners, demonstrating strong technical competence and credibility. - Strategic Planning & Communication: Develop and communicate a compelling vision for Scale AI’s technology applied to your program. Provide regular updates to senior leadership and key stakeholders on progress, risks, and opportunities. - Culture & Teamwork: Foster a culture of speed, unity of purpose, resilience, and teamwork. Lead through uncertainty with determination and adaptability. What We’re Looking For - 10+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years in a technical leadership or staff role. - Deep understanding of modern AI/ML technologies, including experience working with LLMs and AI agents. - Proficient in one or more modern programming languages (Python, JavaScript/TypeScript) - Hands-on experience with Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure). - Strong product and business sense, with a track record of aligning engineering efforts with company goals. - Ability to operate effectively in ambiguous, fast-changing environments and guide your team to do the same. - Experience in executive level engagement with industry partners and Public Sector customers Success Metrics Within 6 months: - Successful demonstration of agentic AI’s mission value in high-stakes customer demonstrations - Establish Scale AI as the preferred agentic AI partner for the PEO - Establish high velocity, agile engineering cadence both internally and with our industry partners Within 12–18 months: - Secure follow-on contract award with expanded scope for Scal