Principal AI Software Engineer

About the Company

Our client is a global SaaS product organization with a broad and diverse portfolio of software solutions used by customers worldwide. With dozens of products spanning multiple domains and technology stacks, the company operates at significant scale and complexity, supporting hundreds of thousands of users globally. The organization emphasizes innovation, modern engineering practices, and the practical application of AI to improve product development, system intelligence, and overall product quality.

Position Overview

We are seeking a Principal AI Software Engineer with deep Java expertise and strong experience integrating AI capabilities into production software. This role is highly hands-on and focused on embedding AI into existing SaaS products to enhance functionality, developer productivity, and system intelligence-rather than building AI models from scratch.

As a Principal Engineer, this individual will operate across multiple high-priority products, each with distinct architectures, users, and technical challenges. The role requires technical depth, architectural thinking, and the ability to move quickly between problem domains while maintaining high engineering standards. This is an ideal opportunity for an engineer who thrives in complex systems, enjoys ambiguity, and has experience delivering practical AI solutions in real-world environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and enhance fullstack applications using Java, Spring Boot, and React.
• Integrate AI capabilities into production systems to improve product features, engineering workflows, and system intelligence.
• Provide technical leadership and architectural guidance across multiple SaaS products and teams.
• Collaborate closely with senior engineers, product leaders, and architects to solve complex, cross-product challenges.
• Work effectively across a variety of codebases, architectures, and technical stacks.
• Contribute to and evolve CI/CD pipelines and modern software development workflows.
• Write clean, maintainable, and scalable code aligned with engineering best practices.
• Influence technical direction and standards while remaining deeply hands-on in delivery.

Required Qualifications

• Extensive experience as a Senior or Principal Software Engineer in product-based environments.
• Strong hands-on experience with Java, Spring Boot, and React.
• Experience building and operating systems on AWS; cloud-agnostic backgrounds are welcome.
• Proven experience integrating AI capabilities into production software environments, with the ability to clearly articulate the approach used and business or technical value delivered.
• Experience working in SaaS or large-scale product organizations.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including system design, performance optimization, and problem solving.
• Comfort working across multiple technology stacks and unfamiliar codebases.

About Korn Ferry

Korn Ferry unleashes potential in people, teams, and organizations. We work with our clients to design optimal organization structures, roles, and responsibilities. We help them hire the right people and advise them on how to reward and motivate their workforce while developing professionals as they navigate and advance their careers. To learn more, please visit Korn Ferry at www.Kornferry.com