Principal AI Engineer (m/f/x) - AI & Digital Systems

About us

The appliedAI Initiative elevates Europe’s industry to become shapers in the age of AI, creating a future that we desire to live in. Through our ecosystem of strong partners, comprehensive programs, services and solutions we advance companies holistically on their AI journey. With our uniquely diverse, interdisciplinary, and driven team, we build on deep technical expertise while specializing on applicability of the solutions. We share a mindset of collaboration and openness with our ecosystem of leading companies and tech players. Our common goal is to strengthen the European landscape, jointly creating unique knowledge for applying trustworthy AI. We believe that AI Agents will be the dominant topic for AI in the near future and that appliedAI with its partner ecosystem will impact how this technology is being used in industry and beyond in Europe.

Your mission

You build the systems other engineers learn from. At appliedAI, we help Europe’s leading companies turn ambitious AI and digitalization strategies into production-grade software - and you take end-to-end ownership of that delivery for our most complex client engagements, while setting the engineering standard that elevates the entire Engineering team. Whether your depth comes from AI/ML systems, large-scale digitalization programs, or solution architecture for complex enterprise environments, you thrive on turning ambiguity into scalable, well-governed systems.

Your tasks will include:

• Architecting and implementing production-grade software and AI solutions for enterprise clients - spanning classical ML, GenAI applications, validated RAG, and agentic systems, alongside the broader digital and software architecture around them - with attention to security, scalability, hybrid/cloud deployments, and operational maturity
• Defining and championing engineering excellence across the team: code quality, design reviews, evaluation harnesses, observability, security, and MLOps standards
• Leading technical delivery from target architecture through production hardening and client handover, working closely with engagement leads on scope and value
• Building reusable engineering accelerators - templates, libraries, and evaluation frameworks - that multiply the impact of the wider Engineering team
• Mentoring mid-level and senior engineers, facilitating technical guilds, and driving a culture of shared knowledge and continuous improvement

Your profile

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including a strong track record at principal or lead level - as an AI/ML engineer, software architect, digitalization lead, or solution architect - with meaningful exposure to AI/ML systems in production or a demonstrated ability to grow quickly into that depth
• Deep engineering foundation across distributed systems, APIs, data pipelines, cloud-native architecture (Azure, AWS, or GCP), containers, CI/CD, and MLOps
• Strong command of Python and solid exposure to the modern AI stack - LangChain/LangGraph, vector stores, evaluation frameworks, or platforms such as Azure AI Foundry - or a proven ability to master this stack rapidly given your engineering depth
• A demonstrable track record leading complex, end-to-end technical delivery in client-facing settings, at enterprise scale
• Pragmatic and code-first in your approach; opinionated about quality, evaluation, security, and operational maturity
• Fluent in both English and German

What we offer

• A highly qualified and motivated team of ~90 people is on a journey to change the rapidly evolving European AI Landscape
• Experience the best of both worlds with our hybrid work model: You can choose to work from our vibrant offices - either at the IPAI in Heilbronn or the House of Communication in Munich - while also enjoying the flexibility to work remotely a few days each week
• Opportunity to shape a variety of projects and the development of new, or