About this opportunity
Original employer descriptionJob Description
Vertex is seeking a Senior Principal AI Engineer to design, build, and optimize the shared platform capabilities that power AI-enabled products and intelligent workflows across the enterprise. Working within the Agentic AI Platform team, this role will focus on delivering production-grade platform services for model integration, prompt and workflow orchestration, evaluation, observability, performance optimization, and agent lifecycle management.
A key focus of this role will be enabling a build/bring-your-own-agents capability within the Agentic AI Platform, allowing teams across Vertex to create, integrate, customize, and operationalize their own agents using shared platform standards, tooling, and governance controls.
The ideal candidate combines strong software engineering fundamentals with deep experience in applied AI systems. This individual will be comfortable operating across rapid experimentation and engineering rigor, translating emerging AI capabilities into scalable, reliable, secure, and reusable platform components. The Senior Principal AI Engineer will play a critical leadership role in accelerating AI adoption across Vertex by enabling product teams to build and deploy AI solutions faster and more effectively.
Build/bring-your-own-agents capability (primary focus): the frameworks, SDKs, templates, interfaces, and guardrails that let teams across Vertex create, integrate, customize, and operationalize their own agents on shared platform standards
Platform services: model integration, prompt and workflow orchestration, tool use, memory patterns, and agentic task coordination that other teams build against
Agent lifecycle and quality: registration, configuration, testing, deployment, versioning, monitoring, and retirement, plus the evaluation and benchmarking frameworks behind them
Developer experience: self-service onboarding, documentation, reference implementations, and enablement resources that shorten the path from idea to production
Standards and technical leadership: platform APIs, service contracts, architecture patterns, and the engineering practices that keep custom agents safe, reliable, and supportable
Design and implement a build/bring-your-own-agents capability that enables teams to create, register, integrate, deploy, and manage their own agents within the enterprise agentic platform
Establish reusable frameworks, SDKs, templates, interfaces, and guardrails that standardize how custom agents are built and onboarded onto the platform
Own the developer experience for the platform, delivering intuitive self-service onboarding, SDKs, CLIs, sandbox environments, reference implementations, and clear documentation that let builders move from idea to production quickly
Define agent lifecycle capabilities including agent registration, configuration, testing, deployment, monitoring, versioning, and retirement
Build and maintain robust integrations with foundation models, model gateways, APIs, enterprise tools, and related AI infrastructure
Design and implement systems for prompt orchestration, workflow execution, tool use, memory patterns, and agentic task coordination
Develop reusable frameworks and services for evaluation, benchmarking, and validation of AI model, agent, and workflow performance
Establish platform capabilities for observability, monitoring, tracing, logging, and alerting across AI workloads and autonomous agent interactions
Optimize platform performance, scalability, latency, reliability, and cost efficiency for production AI and agentic systems
Partner with product, data, engineering, security, and architecture teams to enable enterprise-ready AI solutions
Support governance, risk management, and responsible AI practices through measurable controls, policy enforcement, and technical safeguards for agent behavior
Drive platform adoption by creating reusable components, documentation, onboarding patterns, and developer enablement resources
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, Data Engineering, or a related technical field; advanced degree preferred
Significant industry experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, or AI platform development, including experience in senior or principal-level technical roles
Deep understanding of software engineering best practices including testing, CI/CD, version control, code review, and system reliability
Deep understanding of AI-native software engineering practices and experience establishing standards, governance, and best practices for the responsible use of AI coding assistants and software engineering agents across engineering teams
Technical Skills Required
Advanced degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related discipline
Demonstrated focus on developer experience, including designing self-service onboarding, SDKs, CLIs, sandboxes, templates, and documentation that reduce friction and accelerate time-to-first-deployment for internal builders
Experience in regulated industries such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, or life sciences
#LI-HYBRID
At Vertex, we embrace continuous learning and encourage employees to stay informed on advances in AI, technology, automation, and industry trends. We seek talent who bring an external perspective, demonstrate curiosity and sound judgment, and thoughtfully adopt new capabilities that improve decision-making, drive innovation, increase efficiency, and help deliver better outcomes for patients.
Pay Range:
$188,000 - $282,000
Disclosure Statement:
The range provided is based on what we believe is a reasonable estimate for the base salary pay range for this job at the time of posting. This role is eligible for an annual bonus and annual equity awards. Some roles may also be eligible for overtime pay, in accordance with federal and state requirements. Actual base salary pay will be based on a number of factors, including skills, competencies, experience, and other job-related factors permitted by law.
At Vertex, our Total Rewards offerings also include inclusive market-leading benefits to meet our employees wherever they are in their career, financial, family and wellbeing journey while providing flexibility and resources to support their growth and aspirations. From medical, dental and vision benefits to generous paid time off (including a week-long company shutdown in the Summer and the Winter), educational assistance programs including student loan repayment, a generous commuting subsidy, matching charitable donations, 401(k) and so much more.
Company Information
Vertex is a global biotechnology company that invests in scientific innovation.
Vertex is committed to equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination for all employees and qualified applicants without regard to a person's race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, or any characteristic protected under applicable law. Vertex is an E-Verify Employer in the United States. Vertex will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities, in accordance with applicable law.
Any applicant requiring an accommodation in connection with the hiring process and/or to perform the essential functions of the position for which the applicant has applied should make a request to the recruiter or hiring manager, or contact Talent Acquisition at [email protected]
