Principal AI Engineering Manager

Overview

WHO YOU’LL WORK WITH

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• As an Expert Senior Manager, Software Engineering, you will lead the strategy, architecture, development, and deployment of software applications that address complex business and technology problems in various industries. You will mentor and guide a diverse engineering team through the entire engineering life cycle. Your responsibilities will include designing, developing, optimizing, and deploying cutting-edge software engineering solutions and infrastructure at the production scale required by the world’s largest companies, with a strong focus on ensuring technical delivery supports business strategy, operating model evolution, and sustainable value creation.
• Shape and scope client solutions by partnering with Bain consulting teams, product owners, and client stakeholders to translate business problems into product visions, prioritized backlogs, and engineering roadmaps for cross-functional squads
• Lead end-to-end client solution development from business problem framing and strategy ideation through architecture, engineering execution, deployment, adoption, and change enablement, ensuring technical delivery supports product adoption and measurable business impact
• Be responsible as a technical leader for the successful delivery of scalable, resilient, and high-quality software systems across client engagements
• Lead cross-functional teams of designers, engineers, data scientists, and consultants to deliver end-to-end AI and software solutions while guiding clients on architecture modernization, microservices, platform strategy, engineering operating models, build processes, security, and engineering best practices
• Define and drive software engineering best practices across the full software production lifecycle
• Bring hands-on engineering expertise, such as building production-grade software, architecting scalable systems, APIs, microservices, applying modern best practices across security, testing, CI/CD, observability, and resilient system design
• Guide the development of abstract libraries and software components to accelerate the delivery of client solutions and improve reuse across projects and teams
• Work with senior leaders to maintain a working environment that attracts great talent, fosters excellence, inclusion, apprenticeship, and continuous learning
• Coach and develop software engineers across frontend, backend, platform, DevOps and AI, to strengthen their technical capabilities, business acumen, and accelerate their careers
• Act as Professional Development Advisor for colleagues as needed
• Lead recruiting and onboarding for team members
• Travel is required. This position requires regional travel away from your home office/primary working location. Travel frequency and destinations will vary based on project needs

Technical Skills & Knowledge

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field
• 8+ years of relevant professional hands-on experience in software development, version control, software design patterns, infrastructure and deployment, as well as integration and unit testing implementation
• 3+ years of experience leading and managing software engineers
• Experience working directly with business stakeholders to translate strategic objectives into solution, platform products or roadmaps.
• Experience supporting strategy, operating model, transformation, or change initiatives in partnership with senior business leaders
• Track record of leading and collaborating on strategic initiatives in complex environments with stakeholders of different seniority levels
• Experience production-grade, enterprise-scale AI applications and data analytics products
• Expert knowledge of Python, JavaScript and one or more additional programming languages
• Experience building server-side services using FastAPI, Node.js/Express, Flask, Django, .NET Core or Java Spring Boot or similar technologies, including the design of APIs
• Experience with cloud platforms and services of AWS, Azure, GCP, and infrastructure-as-code such as Terraform, CloudFormation or Bicep
• Solid computer science fundamentals, data structures, algorithms, object-oriented and functional paradigms, automated testing, performance profiling
• Excellence in software architecture design, including modular, distributed, and cloud-native systems, CI/CD, scalability, resiliency, maintainability, and observability
• Experience with data security and privacy regulations, key topics in cybersecurity, authentication and authorization mechanisms
• Knowledge of enterprise data strategy and architecture principles across operational and analytical domains
• Hands-on experience with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes, and with platform engineering practices that improve developer productivity and delivery reliability
• Ideally, experience with modern AI/ML development, working with LLM APIs, prompt engineering, RAG pipelines, agentic SDKs and AI safety
• Ideally, hands-on experience with modern web technologies such as React, Angular, Vue.js, TypeScript, HTML5 and CSS3
• Agile delivery mindset, experience with Scrum or Kanban, story-point estimation, backlog grooming and the use of Git-based workflows
• Professional fluency in English

Interpersonal Skills

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, including the ability to explain and discuss technicalities of solutions, algorithms and techniques with colleagues and clients from other disciplines
• Curiosity, proactivity and critical thinking
• Ability to collaborate with people at all levels and with multi-office/region teams
• Ability to work independently and juggle priorities to thrive in a fast paced and ambiguous environment, while also collaborating as part of a team in complex situations