Principal Engineer - Supply Chain AI Solutions

Description & Requirements

Introduction: A Career at HARMAN Automotive

We’re a global, multi-disciplinary team that’s putting the innovative power of technology to work and transforming tomorrow. At HARMAN Automotive, we give you the keys to fast-track your career.

• Engineer audio systems and integrated technology platforms that augment the driving experience
• Combine ingenuity, in-depth research, and a spirit of collaboration with design and engineering excellence
• Advance in-vehicle infotainment, safety, efficiency, and enjoyment

About the Role

Drive hands-on delivery of AI and Generative AI solutions that streamline supply chain workflows and deliver measurable business value through hours saved, cycle-time reduction, improved decision quality, risk mitigation, and the breadth of users served. You will architect, develop, and maintain production-grade systems encompassing RAG pipelines, agentic tools, model routing, vector search, evaluation and guardrails, and observability, all tightly integrated with internal platforms, enterprise datasets, and supply chain systems. This is primarily a hands-on GenAI and software engineering role, with supply chain expertise providing the domain context for solution design and delivery.

What You Will Do

• Automate high-impact supply chain workflows for internal stakeholders, prioritizing initiatives with the greatest time savings, business impact, and user reach.
• Deliver production-ready copilots and applications for knowledge search, document summarization, intelligent recommendations, conversational analytics, exception management, and end-to-end workflow automation.
• Apply GenAI and software engineering to supply chain use cases across procurement; supplier collaboration and management; risk management; quality; costing; engineering; materials and warehouse management; finished-goods and component-level planning; and ESG.
• Architect and develop scalable, high-performance data and AI systems that support RAG, agentic workflows, secure tool use, and model orchestration.
• Own the complete solution lifecycle, from problem definition and rapid prototyping through rigorous evaluation, production deployment, ongoing monitoring, and continuous improvement.
• Design and implement RAG pipelines over heterogeneous and often messy enterprise and supply chain data, including contracts, purchase orders, supplier documents, bills of material, requirements, quality records, audit artifacts, planning data, business rules, and unstructured content. Select embedding strategies, chunking approaches, vector search configurations, rerankers, metadata or knowledge-graph enrichment techniques, and routing policies to maximize retrieval quality.
• Develop agentic workflows leveraging LangChain, LlamaIndex, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and agent-to-agent (A2A) protocols; build secure tools that allow agents to retrieve data and execute approved actions in enterprise systems.
• Integrate AI solutions with enterprise applications and data platforms through APIs, events, batch pipelines, and governed access patterns; design integrations that are resilient, observable, and maintainable.
• Evaluate when to use platform-native embedded AI capabilities versus custom-built GenAI components, and design modular solutions that can evolve with the enterprise tool landscape.
• Translate subject-matter-expert knowledge into robust prompts, tools, workflow logic, and validation rules; evaluate trade-offs among prompt engineering, retrieval augmentation, fine-tuning, and deterministic software.
• Work hands-on with large language models, vector databases such as Pinecone and FAISS, and agent memory systems.
• Establish operational excellence through rigorous SLAs; safety and guardrail mechanisms; prompt and version management; transparent evaluation; latency and throughput optimization; cost controls; load balancing; fallback or model-routing strategies; and human review for process-critical decisions.
• Establish observability using tools such as Datadog, Grafana, and LangFuse, along with model and data governance, access controls, auditability, and operational support appropriate for internal enterprise environments.
• Build and maintain data products, lakes, and warehouses using platforms such as Snowflake, Delta Lake, BigQuery, and Microsoft Fabric to support supply chain AI use cases.
• Build internal copilots and customer-facing features using React, Node.js, and Python with REST or GraphQL backends; containerize applications with Docker, orchestrate with Kubernetes, automate CI/CD pipelines, and manage infrastructure as code using tools such as Terraform.
• Collaborate closely with supply chain subject-matter experts, requirements, testing, validation, cybersecurity, data, platform, and enterprise application teams; communicate proactively and iterate rapidly in a fast-paced environment.

What You Need To Be Successful

• 8+ years of experience building production software, ideally including ML systems and hands-on work with LLMs and Generative AI; demonstrated technical leadership while remaining deeply hands-on.
• Programming: Python (FastAPI, NumPy, Pandas, scikit-learn, Pydantic, Jinja2) and Node.js; strong proficiency with APIs and distributed systems.
• LLMs and Frameworks: Hands-on experience with at least one major deep learning or LLM stack, such as PyTorch/Transformers or TensorFlow/Keras, and orchestration frameworks such as LangChain or LlamaIndex.
• Model Providers: Working familiarity connecting to inference providers and model ecosystems such as AWS Bedrock, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta/Llama, and Mistral.
• Data and Storage: SQL and NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, DynamoDB), Elasticsearch for search and analytics, and vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, Milvus, pgvector).
• Cloud and Infrastructure: AWS (S3, EC2, Lambda, CloudWatch, Fargate, EKS/ECS), Azure, GCP, Databricks, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD, Airflow, and Kafka.
• Enterprise Integration: Demonstrated experience integrating production software or AI systems with one or more enterprise platforms using APIs, event-driven interfaces, batch or data pipelines, authentication and authorization, and robust error-handling patterns.
• Operational Excellence: Load balancing, monitoring and alerting (Datadog, Grafana, LangFuse), debugging production issues, evaluation and release discipline, and cost and performance optimization.
• Preferred Platform Experience - Strong Plus: Experience with one or more of SAP, SAP S/4HANA, SAP Ariba, enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, Ivalua, OneStream, Darwin Analytics, SupplyOn, or SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP). Experience using or extending platform-native AI capabilities is valuable; breadth across every platform is not required.
• Preferred Supply Chain Domain Experience - Strong Plus: Delivery experience in one or more of procurement, supplier collaboration and management, risk management, quality, costing, engineering, materials and warehouse management, finished-goods or component-level planning, and ESG. Familiarity with automotive supply chain and compliance concepts such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), Process Release Audit (PRA), and Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) is an additional advantage.
• Soft Skills: Strong communication abilities, product-oriented thinking, effective collaboration with technical and functional subject-matter experts, and the capacity to learn and adapt quickly in a dynamic environment.
• Education: BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, or equivalent professional experience.

What Makes You Eligible

• Ability to work from an office in Novi, MI, 3+ days per week (hybrid)
• Successfully complete a background investigation and drug screen as a condition of employment

What We Offer

• Access to employee discounts on world-class products (JBL, HARMAN Kardon, AKG, and more)
• Extensive training opportunities through our own HARMAN University
• Competitive wellness benefits
• Tuition reimbursement
• “Be Brilliant” employee recognition and rewards program
• An inclusive and diverse work environment that fosters and encourages professional and personal development

#Hybrid

#LI-AA1

Pay Transparency

$ 125,250 - $ 183,700

Dependent on the position offered, other forms of compensation are also available, such as bonuses or commission.

Pay is based on a wide range of factors, including, without limitation, skill set, experience, training, location, and business need. While the above range is a reasonable estimate of the wage range for this position, please note the disclosed range estimate has not been adjusted for the applicable geographical differential associated with the location where the position may be filled.

Benefits

HARMAN is interested in the health and wellbeing of you and your family and offers a range of benefits designed to support your needs for holistic wellbeing. Benefits and perks may vary depending on the nature of your employment with HARMAN, and may include paid vacation and holidays, paid sick leave, volunteer leave, and paid bonding and care giver leave. Employees may also be eligible to participate in comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans, fertility support and adoption assistance, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plan with employer match, short and long term disability coverage, life insurance, and more.

About HARMAN: Where Innovation Unleashes Next-Level Technology 

Ever since the 1920s, we’ve been amplifying the sense of sound. Today, that legacy endures, with integrated technology platforms that make the world smarter, safer, and more connected.  

Across automotive, lifestyle, and digital transformation solutions, we create innovative technologies that turn ordinary moments into extraordinary experiences. Our renowned automotive and lifestyle solutions can be found everywhere, from the music we play in our cars and homes to venues that feature today’s most sought-after performers, while our digital transformation solutions serve humanity by addressing the world’s ever-evolving needs and demands. Marketing our award-winning portfolio under 16 iconic brands, such as JBL, Mark Levinson, and Revel, we set ourselves apart by exceeding the highest engineering and design standards for our customers, our partners and each other. 

If you’re ready to innovate and do work that makes a lasting impact, join our talent community today!

Important Notice: Recruitment Scams

Please be aware that HARMAN recruiters will always communicate with you from an '@harman.com', ‘@careers.harman.com’ or ‘@harmanglobal.avature.net’ email address. We will never ask for payments, banking, credit card, personal financial information or access to your LinkedIn/email account during the screening, interview, or recruitment process. If you are asked for such information or receive communication from an email address not ending in one of the above email domains about a job with HARMAN, please cease communication immediately and report the incident to us through: View email address on jobsearch.harman.com.

You Belong Here 

HARMAN is committed to making every employee feel welcomed, valued, and empowered. No matter what role you play, we encourage you to share your ideas, voice your distinct perspective, and bring your whole self with you – all within a support-minded culture that celebrates what makes each of us unique. We also recognize that learning is a lifelong pursuit and want you to flourish. We proudly offer added opportunities for training, development, and continuing education, further empowering you to live the career you want.  

HARMAN is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. HARMAN strives to hire the best qualified candidates and is committed to building a workforce representative of the diverse marketplaces and communities of our global colleagues and customers.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. HARMAN attracts, hires, and develops employees based on merit, qualifications and job-related performance.() 

HARMAN is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. If you need assistance or an accommodation during the application process, please contact us at  View email address on jobsearch.harman.com . Requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with applicable law.