Principal Software Engineer, AI Email Applications, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Required - Work From Home

Company: Next Step Systems

Location: San Francisco, CA, United States (Remote)

Type: Full-time

Remote: Yes

Posted: 2026-09-07

About this role

Principal Software Engineer, AI Email Applications, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Required - Work From Home

As the Principal Software Engineer, AI Email Applications, you own the engineering layer that turns Artificial Intelligence (AI) capability into a reliable product.  You will shape the architecture across backend services, APIs, and client applications, while leading a small team of senior engineers.  This is a hands-on leadership role.  You stay close to the code, make critical architectural decisions, and ensure the system remains fast, reliable, and coherent as it scales.  This position is 100% Remote.

MUST BE WILLING TO TAKE A 60 MINUTE CODING ASSESSMENT.

Principal Software Engineer Responsibilities:

  • Own the application engineering strategy and execution across backend, mobile, and desktop.
  • Design reliable systems for AI-powered workflows, including state, orchestration, tool use, retries, fallbacks, and failure handling.
  • Build the APIs and abstractions that connect Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems to real-world product experiences.
  • Lead a small, senior engineering team and raise the technical bar through design reviews, code reviews, and hands-on mentorship.
  • Make high-impact trade-offs across latency, reliability, cost, security, and user experience.
  • Establish strong production foundations: observability, monitoring, testing, and operational excellence.
  • Partner closely with Machine Learning (ML) leadership to turn model capabilities into robust, shippable product experiences.
  • Move quickly while keeping the architecture simple, maintainable, and ready to scale.

Principal Software Engineer Outcomes:

  • Production systems are observable, monitored, and stable under real-world load.
  • Decisions consistently balance speed, cost, reliability, and user experience.
  • Features across backend, mobile, and desktop work smoothly and reliably.
  • Latency and reliability improve measurably over time.

Principal Software Engineer...

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