AI Platform Principal Engineer

OverviewIn this role, you'll join the Waters AI Centre of Excellence (CoE) and lead the engineering team responsible for the platform that underpins our AI capabilities.The team owns platform services, tooling, and operational practices that allow other development teams to build & run their own AI agents and solutions at scale. You'll work closely with architects, security teams, cloud-ops/infrastructure teams, and AI engineers to ensure the platform is secure, reliable, cost-effective, and easy to use.This is a senior technical leadership position. You'll help set engineering standards, guide technical decisions, review critical designs, and support the growth of the engineering team while remaining hands-on where it adds the most value.We're looking for someone with a strong engineering and platform background who has experience building, delivering, or operating AI solutions in a production environment. While AI experience is important, we recognize that technology is moving quickly and very few people have worked across every area of modern AI platforms. For the right candidate, we're happy to support development in areas where experience may be lighter, particularly as our own AI capabilities continue to grow.Here at Waters, we look for people who enjoy solving difficult technical problems, work well with others, and focus on delivering outcomes rather than simply delivering technology.ResponsibilitiesLead the engineering team responsible for the AI platform and its supporting services.Own the reliability, security, scalability, and operational health of the platformTranslate architectural direction into maintainable and supportable engineering solutionsImplement and operationalize engineering standards through automated testing and quality gates, deployment tooling, and operational readiness practicesLead cloud platform, CI/CD, and deployment practices for AI workloadsDefine and maintain monitoring, logging, and observability standards across the platformPartner with security, infrastructure, and architecture teams to ensure compliance with enterprise standardsBalance business priorities, platform improvements, operational stability, and technical debt when planning platform deliveryProvide mentoring, coaching, and technical leadership to platform engineersImprove the developer experience for the AI engineering teams who build agents and AI solutions on the platform; providing reusable services, templates, frameworks, and documentation for them to build onReview high-risk technical changes and provide guidance on complex engineering decisionsEvaluate new technologies and platform capabilities that could improve security, reliability, productivity, or scalabilityPromote knowledge sharing and engineering best practice across the AI CoEQualifications8yrs + experience in software engineering, platform engineering, cloud engineering, machine learning engineering, or a related technical disciplineDemonstrated experience providing technical leadership for enterprise platforms, distributed systems, or cloud-native solutionsExperience building, supporting, or operating AI, machine learning, or generative AI solutions in production environmentsStrong understanding of modern software engineering principles, distributed systems, APIs, microservices, event-driven architectures, and cloud-native developmentExperience with at least one major cloud platform (AWS preferred; Azure or GCP experience also welcomed)Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code approaches, containerisation, and modern deployment practicesExperience implementing CI/CD, automation, monitoring, and operational practices for enterprise applications or AI-enabled solutionsUnderstanding of AI platform components such as vector databases, retrieval systems, orchestration frameworks, model serving, or related technologiesFamiliarity with agentic AI, AI orchestration frameworks, or emerging AI platform capabilities would be beneficialExperience establishing engineering standards, governance practices, and operational processesExperience in platform security, access management, risk management, cost and operational governanceStrong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work across engineering, architecture, business, and security teamsExperience mentoring engineers and helping technical teams grow and succeedInterested, but don't tick every box?We're looking for experienced engineering leaders who have successfully built, operated, or supported AI solutions in production environments. We don't expect candidates to have worked with every tool, platform, framework, or architectural pattern listed in this description. If you have a strong background in software, cloud, platform, or machine learning engineering and can demonstrate experience delivering AI-enabled solutions, we'd encourage you to apply. We are committed to helping the successful candidate continue to develop their skills as our AI platform, tooling, and operating model mature.Company DescriptionWaters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) is a global leader in life sciences and diagnostics, dedicated to accelerating the benefits of pioneering science through analytical technologies, informatics, and service. With a focus on regulated, high-volume testing environments, our innovative portfolio harnesses deep scientific expertise across chemistry, physics, and biology. We collaborate with customers around the world to advance the release of effective, high-quality medicines, ensure the safety of food and water, and drive better patient outcomes by detecting diseases earlier, managing routine infections, and combating antibiotic resistance. Through a shared culture of relentless innovation, our passionate team of ~16,000 colleagues turn scientific challenges into breakthroughs that improve lives worldwide. Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to our core values at Waters Corporation. It benefits our employees, our products, our customers and our community. Waters complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws. Qualified applicants are considered without regard to sex, race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, marital status (including civil unions), military service, veteran status, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions), genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, legally recognized disability, domestic violence victim status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Waters is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. All hiring decisions are based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs at the time.Key WordsPlatform Engineering; Platform Lead; Platform Architect; Infrastructure As Code; Platform Security; Governance; Technical Leadership; Cloud Ops; LLM; Vector Database; RAGJob SummaryReq. #: 27429Job Family: BT - Business TechnologyLocation: US-MA-MilfordPay Range Minimum: USD $152,000.00Pay Range Maximum: USD $253,000.00