Principal AI Engineering Specialist

Position Overview


We are seeking a Principal AI Software Engineer to join a newly formed innovation team focused on accelerating software development through AI-enabled solutions. This role emphasizes applying existing AI models and tools-not building models from scratch-to improve engineering velocity, code quality, and delivery efficiency across a diverse product portfolio.


As a Principal AI Software Engineer, you will lead complex, high-impact initiatives and serve as a hands-on technical authority. You will apply strong software engineering fundamentals to integrate AI into modern development workflows, establish scalable patterns, and help validate best practices for AI-assisted development at scale.


Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design and implementation of AI-enhanced software development pipelines across multiple products.
• Drive proof-of-concept and early-stage platforms, ensuring quality, scalability, and production readiness.
• Navigate and adapt to varied technology stacks, applying pragmatic solutions to real-world engineering problems.
• Integrate AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot) into CI/CD workflows to improve developer productivity and code quality.
• Own architectural and technical decisions, driving execution in ambiguous and fast-moving environments.
• Partner closely with product, engineering, and business stakeholders across distributed, global teams.

Must-Have Qualifications

• AI-Enabled Software Engineering Experience: Demonstrated hands-on experience applying AI tools to real-world software development workflows (specific examples required).
• Principal-Level Full Stack Expertise: Strong background in modern full-stack development using .NET and React, with the ability to work across multiple languages, frameworks, and legacy codebases.
• Cloud Agnostic: Experience operating across diverse cloud environments without reliance on a single provider.
• CI/CD Expertise: Proven experience with centralized GitHub-based workflows and integrating AI tooling into delivery pipelines.
• Technical Adaptability: Ability to quickly understand and contribute to unfamiliar codebases and architectures.
• Communication Skills: Clear and effective communicator capable of translating technical concepts for varied audiences.
• Ownership Mentality: Self-directed leader who takes initiative, drives decisions, and executes without heavy oversight.
• Pragmatic Engineering Mindset: Focused on delivering practical, scalable solutions that create measurable impact.

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