Principal AI Engineer

Hotel 1 - Corp Atlanta Ravinia, Three Ravinia Drive, Suite 100, 30346 A principal AI engineer serves as the foremost technical authority and strategic leader for our AI discipline. This role combines profound technical expertise with the ability to influence and guide the entire organization's technical direction. Your Day to Day Define and drive the long‑term technical strategy for AI at the company; identify and champion new technological paradigms that create step‑change opportunities and sustainable competitive advantages. Design, prototype, and standardize foundational AI platforms, frameworks, and core services that will be leveraged by engineering teams across the entire organization. Act as the lead technical consultant on AI for all product and engineering teams, influencing architectural decisions, development practices, and technology choices to ensure a cohesive and forward‑looking technical ecosystem. Tackle the most complex and mission‑critical technical problems beyond the scope of a single team – pioneering new model architectures, solving novel systems‑level problems, and leading high‑risk, high‑reward R&D initiatives. Act as a dedicated mentor and role model for lead and senior engineers, elevating architectural and design skills across the company. Establish and evangelize best practices, design patterns, and engineering standards for AI development, from model training and deployment to ethics and reliability. What We Need From You Education Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a relevant field of work or an equivalent combination of education and work‑related experience. Experience Typically, a minimum of 10+ years of progressive work‑related experience with demonstrated proficiency in multiple disciplines, technologies, or processes related to the position. Experience working with geographically dispersed teams and bringing a holistic view of development projects. A distinguished career with extensive experience in software engineering and AI, with a proven track record of operating at a Principal or equivalent level (e.g., Senior/Lead Staff Engineer, Architect). Recognized as a technical leader with experience setting the technical vision for multiple teams or an entire engineering department. Verifiable history of architecting, building, and shipping large‑scale, mission‑critical AI systems that have delivered significant business impact. Deep experience navigating ambiguity and translating high‑level business or product strategy into a concrete, multi‑year technical roadmap. Experience presenting to and influencing executive leadership (VPs, CTO, CPO) on complex technical topics. Technical Skill & Knowledge Expert understanding of modern AI concepts, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG), and agentic workflows. Deep, authoritative knowledge of major generative AI platforms, with a proven ability to reason about and architect solutions using the Google Gemini family of models and their underlying infrastructure (highly preferred). Expert‑level proficiency in Python and common AI/ML libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, LangChain, Hugging Face). Expert experience with a major cloud provider (GCP, AWS, Azure), including their AI/ML services. Familiarity with MLOps principles and tools for CI/CD, model deployment, and monitoring. Solid understanding of microservices architecture, API design (e.g., REST, gRPC), and containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes). World‑class ability to design highly scalable, fault‑tolerant, and elegant distributed systems. Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills. Effective verbal and written communication skills, explaining complex technical issues to a variety of technical audiences, including clients, vendors, senior management, and staff. A history of contributions to open‑source projects, publications in reputable conferences, or speaking at technical events is a strong plus. Ability to establish and maintain a high level of customer trust and confidence in the software engineering team’s knowledge of the customer’s business needs. Understands and implements work effectively utilizing agile best practices. Travel -10% Location Our hybrid work structure is an expectation of three (3) days a week in office. This expectation may evolve with changing business needs. Salary & Benefits The salary range for this role is $180,000 to $220,000. This role is also eligible for bonus pay and offers a comprehensive benefits package, including paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance, 401K, and other employee benefits. Equal Employment Opportunity IHG Hotels & Resorts provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other category protected by applicable laws. We promote a culture of trust, support, and acceptance. #J-18808-Ljbffr