Principal AI Engineer

About Us Hey! We're The HOTH. Our name stands for Hittem' Over the Head. In other words, to bludgeon with awesomeness. We're one of the largest search marketing companies in the world, helping thousands of businesses grow through innovative digital marketing products and services. Our parent company, Next Net, is investing heavily in AI. We're building a next-generation SaaS platform that combines large language models, cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, and modern engineering practices to help businesses understand and improve their online presence. This isn't an AI side project. It's one of the company's highest strategic priorities. About the Position We're looking for a Principal AI Engineer to help build the future of NextNet AI. This isn't a management role. You won't spend your days sitting in status meetings or managing people. This is a role for someone who loves building. You'll partner directly with our CTO to solve the hardest technical problems across our platform. We're looking for someone who can jump into unfamiliar systems, understand them quickly, and ship production-quality solutions with confidence. Some days you'll be debugging a frontend issue that turns into a backend API problem. Other days you'll be optimizing AI pipelines, designing scalable cloud infrastructure, improving distributed services, or shipping entirely new product capabilities. If you're the engineer people call when nobody else can figure something out, keep reading! Please note: This is a senior, hands-on engineering position. While you'll partner closely with technical leadership, this role does not include people management responsibilities. A Typical Day in the Life 40% Building production-ready features across frontend, backend, AI services, and cloud infrastructure. 20% Diagnosing complex production issues, identifying root causes, and improving platform reliability. 15% Designing scalable architecture for new AI products and platform enhancements. 15% Evaluating new AI models, engineering approaches, and emerging technologies. 10% Collaborating with engineering leadership to solve high-impact technical challenges. Your Key Responsibilities Build and deploy production-grade AI software. Own complex engineering initiatives from design through deployment. Work comfortably across frontend, backend, infrastructure, cloud, and AI systems. Design scalable backend services and APIs. Improve platform performance, reliability, and observability. Debug issues across distributed systems and identify root causes rather than surface symptoms. Reduce technical debt and improve long-term maintainability. Evaluate emerging AI technologies and recommend practical adoption. Document technical decisions that help the team move faster. Partner directly with the CTO on architecture, platform evolution, and strategic technical initiatives. Our Tech Stack You don't need experience with every technology below, but you should have deep expertise in several and be excited to learn the rest. Frontend: React, Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS Backend: Python, Django, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Redis AI: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, RAG, vector databases, embeddings, AI orchestration Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, ECS/Fargate, S3, Lambda, Terraform, Docker, Cloudflare, CI/CD About You We're probably describing you if you... Have 10+ years building production software. Have built production AI applications that real customers use. Can comfortably move between frontend, backend, cloud infrastructure, and AI systems. Have strong Python experience. Have hands-on AWS experience. Enjoy debugging difficult technical problems. Prefer shipping software over talking about software. Take ownership without needing a lot of direction. Care deeply about writing maintainable, scalable systems. Bonus Points Experience with distributed systems. Experience with Terraform or Infrastructure as Code. Experience with LLMs, RAG, vector databases, or agentic workflows. Experience scaling SaaS products. Experience in SEO, digital marketing, or MarTech. Why You'll Love Working Here We're one of the best kinds of companies to work for. We've grown from a bootstrapped startup into one of the largest search marketing companies in the world, while maintaining the agility and culture that got us here. We've been recognized multiple times as one of Tampa Bay's Best Places to Work and have also been recognized by Inc. Magazine for our workplace culture! You'll work directly alongside experienced engineers solving meaningful technical problems with modern tools. Your work won't disappear into a giant organization. You'll see your ideas become products and your code reach customers quickly. If you enjoy autonomy, ownership, and building things that matter, you'll fit right in. Benefits & Perks Competitive salary ($180,000-$200,000 DOE) Hybrid work schedule (Monday, Wednesday, Friday in-office) Remote Tuesdays & Thursdays Medical, Dental & Vision Insurance 401(k) with 3% company match Paid Vacation, Sick Time, Paid Holidays & Parental Leave $50/month Wellness Stipend Free Downtown Parking Free Breakfast Mondays & Lunch Fridays Dog-Friendly Office Casual Dress Team Celebrations & Company Events Location & Work Arrangement This is a full-time W-2 position. We're open to remote candidates located in states where Next Net is currently registered to employ team members. Our preference is: Candidates local to the St. Petersburg, FL area who can work a hybrid schedule (Monday, Wednesday, Friday in-office). Remote candidates located in Florida or the East Coast. Remote candidates located in one of our approved employment states. Hybrid employees follow our standard in-office schedule of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with remote work on Tuesday and Thursday. Fully remote employees are not expected to report to our St. Petersburg office on a regular basis. At this time, we can only consider candidates residing in the following states who are authorized to work in the United States: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Application Ready to build something meaningful? We'd love to hear from you. Please submit your resume along with a short introduction telling us about the most technically challenging system you've built, scaled, or debugged. We'd also love to see your GitHub, personal projects, blog, or anything else that demonstrates your engineering work. Bonus points if you include the word 'banana' in your application (this is the secret word). We like engineers who pay attention to details.