Principal AI Engineer

Description:
On-site Every Other Week onsite / 5 days in the Cincinnati, OH area.

Our client seeks a Principal AI Engineer to help build a new AI engineering organization that delivers innovative AI solutions enhancing advisor and client experiences. You will shape technical direction, influence engineering best practices, and deliver AI capabilities from concept through production. You will partner with business leaders, product teams, architects, data scientists, and engineers to identify high-value use cases and build secure, scalable, enterprise-grade AI solutions that drive measurable outcomes. The role blends hands-on engineering across AI, data, and cloud with stakeholder alignment and product thinking.

Due to client requirements, applicants must be willing and able to work on a w2 basis. For our w2 consultants, we offer a great benefits package that includes Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits, 401k with company matching, and life insurance.

Rate: $75.00 to $88.00/hr. w2

Responsibilities:

• Define technical strategy and establish engineering best practices for AI-powered solutions across advisor and client experiences.
• Design, build, and deploy scalable applications and distributed systems in cloud environments.
• Develop AI and LLM capabilities including agents, RAG, semantic search, and workflow automation using platforms such as OpenAI, Claude, Bedrock, and frameworks like LangChain and LangGraph.
• Partner with business leaders, product teams, architects, data scientists, and engineers to identify high-value use cases and deliver measurable outcomes.
• Implement knowledge retrieval and recommendation systems leveraging vector databases and retrieval frameworks.
• Lead full-stack development using Python, TypeScript, Node.js, React, and Next.js with secure APIs and cloud-native patterns.
• Apply platform engineering and DevOps practices including containers, Kubernetes, and Infrastructure-as-Code for reliable delivery.
• Drive decisions that improve performance, reduce costs, and increase reliability while aligning with business priorities.
• Mentor engineers, set technical standards, and foster a high-performance engineering culture.
• Translate emerging AI capabilities into practical, production-grade applications that enhance advisor productivity and client engagement.

Experience Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience with 8+ years of software engineering experience, or a Master's degree with 6+ years.
• Proven delivery of production-grade software and distributed systems at scale.
• Deep expertise building AI applications with LLMs, agent frameworks, and orchestration platforms.
• Hands-on experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation, semantic search, and enterprise knowledge systems.
• Full-stack proficiency with Python, TypeScript, Node.js, React, and Next.js.
• Cloud deployment experience with AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
• Experience with containers, Kubernetes, Terraform, and cloud-native architectures.
• Strong grounding in software architecture, design patterns, security, and reliability.
• Demonstrated problem-solving skills and sound technical judgment.
• Proven ability to collaborate across engineering, data, product, and business teams from concept to production.

Education Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in a related field or equivalent experience. Master's degree preferred.

Recruitment Transparency Notice

Eliassen Group values transparency in our recruitment practices. Please be advised that Eliassen Group utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) tools as part of its initial application screening and hiring process. You may receive email and SMS notifications from the Eliassen Virtual Recruiting Team ( , ) inviting you to complete a brief voice screening as part of your application process. These tools assist our hiring teams in different ways, including but not limited to, assistance in reviewing application materials to help identify candidates whose qualifications most closely match the requirements of the position. All AI-assisted evaluations and responses are reviewed by human recruiters before any hiring decisions are made. The use of AI in our process is intended to support fairness, efficiency, and consistency, and Eliassen Group takes measures to prevent bias or discrimination in connection with its hiring practices. By proceeding, you acknowledge, agree, and consent to Eliassen Group's use of these tools, including AI tools, as part of the application and hiring process.

Skills, experience, and other compensable factors will be considered when determining pay rate. The pay range provided in this posting reflects a W2 hourly rate; other employment options may be available that may result in pay outside of the provided range.

W2 employees of Eliassen Group who are regularly scheduled to work 30 or more hours per week are eligible for the following benefits: medical (choice of 3 plans), dental, vision, pre-tax accounts, other voluntary benefits including life and disability insurance, 401(k) with match, and sick time if required by law in the worked-in state/locality.
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When you work with Eliassen Group, all email communication will come from an Eliassen.com address, never Gmail, Yahoo, etc.

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About Eliassen Group:

Eliassen Group is a strategic consulting firm that helps organizations reach further and achieve more through our technology, business advisory, and life sciences solutions. For nearly 40 years, we have combined exceptional people, deep domain expertise, and intelligent capabilities to expand our clients' capacity and accelerate meaningful outcomes. We are driven by a purpose to positively impact the lives of our employees, clients, consultants, and the communities we serve.

Eliassen is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team from a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We are an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer and all employment decisions are based on merit, performance, and business needs. Eliassen does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender identity or expression, sexual preference or orientation, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), marital status, creed, religion, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, age, ancestry, national origin, citizenship status, prohibited criminal record inquiries of applicants and employees, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Don't miss out on our referral program! If we hire a candidate that you refer us to then you can be eligible for a $1,000 referral check!