Principal AI Engineer

Role overview

Principal AI Engineer at Cornerstone OnDemand

Innovation is at the core of this role — you will be expected to continuously push boundaries, experiment with emerging AI techniques, and translate cutting-edge research into production systems.

Responsibilities

• You will architect scalable AI platforms, shape our engineering strategy, and provide expert guidance across cross-functional teams.

Employment details

• Deep expertise in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) — including vector databases, embedding models, hybrid search, and evaluation frameworks.
• Location: Pune [India]

Additional role details

• Principal AI Engineer - Generative AI We're looking for a highly experienced and innovative Principal AI Engineer to drive the development and adoption of our LLM Platform and Generative AI initiatives.
• In this role you will: Hands-on Development: Design, build, and test core LLM platform components, Generative AI agents, and supporting tooling in Java — ensuring production-grade quality, performance, and reliability.
• Architecture & System Design: Lead the design and implementation of robust, scalable systems for LLM orchestration, RAG pipelines, agent workflows (Google ADK), fine-tuning, model serving, and API development on AWS.
• RAG & Knowledge Systems: Architect and own Retrieval-Augmented Generation systems end-to-end — embedding pipelines, vector store selection and tuning, chunking strategies, retrieval evaluation, and integration with generative models.
• Agent Engineering: Build and evolve multi-agent systems using Google Agent Development Kit (ADK), defining patterns for tool use, memory, orchestration, and inter-agent communication.
• Innovation & Research: Actively track and evaluate emerging Generative AI research, frameworks, and tools.
• Prototype novel ideas, run experiments, and champion the adoption of techniques that create competitive advantage.
• Performance & Evaluation: Define evaluation metrics and conduct rigorous assessments of Generative AI and RAG solutions to ensure business impact and continuous improvement.
• Mentorship: Mentor and inspire junior and mid-level engineers — through code reviews, pairing sessions, design guidance, and deliberate investment in their growth.
• Foster a culture of curiosity, ownership, and continuous learning.
• Cross-Team Guidance: Serve as the subject matter expert for multiple teams building Generative AI features — content generation, code assistance, customer support automation, data augmentation, and more.
• You've Got What It Takes If You Have... 10+ years of software engineering experience with a strong focus on AI/ML systems, including 3+ years hands-on with LLMs and Generative AI in production.
• Proven track record designing and shipping complex, high-scale AI systems on AWS (SageMaker, Bedrock, Lambda, ECS, etc.); GCP experience a plus.
• Strong Java engineering skills; experience building production AI services and APIs in the JVM ecosystem.
• Hands-on experience with Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) or comparable agentic frameworks (LangGraph, LangChain, etc.).
• Demonstrated passion for innovation — a track record of introducing new ideas, not just executing on existing ones.
• Experience mentoring engineers at various levels and contributing to team capability growth.
• Solid understanding of data governance, privacy, and responsible AI principles as applied to LLM systems.
• Excellent communication skills — able to translate complex AI/engineering concepts for both technical and non-technical stakeholders. #LI-Onsite