Principal AI Engineering Lead
Circuit
Full-time
On-site
Austin, Texas, United States
Artificial Intelligence
About Circuit
Circuit is building the world's first manufacturing-focused workflow platform. Our mission is to help industrial and manufacturing enterprises transform how they sell, support, and collaborate with their dealer, distributor, and customer networks by turning complex product data and documentation into actionable, intelligent workflows - from partner enablement to CPQ to technical support - we're helping some of the world's most respected OEMs and industrial companies work smarter in the AI era.
We're backed by experienced operators, have raised over $25M, and have scaled to nearly 30 employees with strong traction among global manufacturing leaders. We’re looking for a Principal AI Engineering Lead to help us scale our backend infrastructure as we onboard more customers and expand our agentic capabilities.
The Role
As the Principal AI Engineering Lead, you’ll collaborate with stakeholders across the organization to develop, execute, and deliver a strategic roadmap for the AI components of our solutions. Your responsibilities will include coordinating and leading the AI team, understanding the roadmap, staying on top of commitments and deliverables, as well as hands-on work on building out our AI systems, analyzing feedback, benchmarks and evals to drive continuous improvements, conceptualizing and implementing AI capabilities to solve unique problems. As the lead, you’ll also provide technical leadership and spearhead the growth of this division within the company.
Key Responsibilitirs
- Coordinate and lead the work of the AI team
- Conceptualize and implement new AI capabilities
- Ensure the quality and scalability of our AI solutions
- Collaborate closely with stakeholders to create and drive the strategic roadmap
- Analyze cost/benefit for new AI projects, identifying tradeoffs for maximum ROI
- Be creative, and stay on top of AI advancements to enhance our products
- Mentor and elevate other engineers
Experience
- 7+ years in an engineering lead capacity
- PhD or Master’s degree in Computer Science, preferably with a specialization in AI
- Hands on experience building RAG and Agentic systems
- Solid understanding of LLMs and Deep Learning systems
- Experience deploying and maintaining AI systems in production environments
- Experience with information storage/retrieval using vector databases
- Strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and software engineering principles
- Strong proficiency in Python and tools such as DSPy, MLFlow, Opik, etc.
- Ability and interest in staying up to date on the latest AI research and methodologies
Human Skills
- Strong problem-solving abilities and adaptability in a fast-paced, dynamic environment
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills to convey complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
What We Offer
- Early-Stage Ownership: Join at the ground floor of a company with real traction and momentum.
- Empowered Culture: We value autonomy, candor, and craft. You'll be trusted to lead.
- Cutting-Edge Tech: Work with the latest in AI, backend systems, and intelligent infrastructure.
- Meaningful Impact: Shape a platform that transforms how organizations activate knowledge.
- Holistic Benefits: Competitive comp, equity, 100% paid healthcare, 401K, flexible PTO, and a team that truly cares.
Equal-Opportunity Employer
We are an equal-opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
Who Should Apply
If you’re an experienced AI engineering leader with deep expertise in LLMs, RAG systems, and agentic architectures, and you’re eager to drive technical innovation at a fast-moving startup, we’d love to hear from you.