Principal Applied AI Engineer
Job Fit Check
Base Career helps you apply smarter for this job.
Key skills for this role
About the Role
Principal Applied AI Engineer Location: Saudi Arabia Type: Full-time Seniority: Principal / Staff About Qawafel Qawafel is building digital financial infrastructure for businesses in Saudi Arabia.
Key Skills for This Role
Full Job Posting
Principal Applied Ai Engineer
Location: Saudi Arabia Type: Full-time Seniority: Principal / Staff
About Qawafel
Qawafel is building digital financial infrastructure for businesses in Saudi Arabia.
Our mission is to make B2B financing, credit, and financial operations more accessible, efficient, and reliable for companies.
We are looking for a Principal Applied AI Engineer with hands-on experience building production AI systems in fintech or another regulated environment.
This is a senior IC role to start, with the runway to lead the AI team as the function grows.
You will personally build and own the AI layer across Qawafel's platform, from the internal tools that speed up financing decisions to the AI features our customers use directly.
Role Overview
As Principal Applied AI Engineer, you will own AI architecture and delivery at Qawafel.
You will write the code, make the architectural calls, and ship the systems yourself.
You will work with leadership, engineering, product, design, credit operations, risk, and compliance.
Qawafel sits at the center of B2B trade in Saudi Arabia.
We take the messy reality of how businesses buy, sell, and pay each other and turn it into structured data that can be financed.
This role starts hands-on.
As the AI function grows, the expectation is that you transition into leading the team while staying technically deep.
Responsibilities
- Own AI architecture and delivery across Qawafel's platform.
- Personally design, build, and deploy production AI systems with the observability and evaluation that production work requires.
- Build AI features using LLMs, RAG, document intelligence pipelines, embeddings, vector databases, and AI agents.
- Build document intelligence pipelines that handle financial statements, bank statements, invoices, contracts, and trade records across English and Arabic.
- Lead the build of an internal AI assistant that speeds up the financing workflow end to end.
- Choose and integrate the AI models, document processing tools, vector databases, and supporting infrastructure we use.
- Define how we evaluate, monitor, and secure AI systems in production.
- Work with product and engineering to embed AI into core platform workflows.
- Work with risk, compliance, operations, and finance teams to make sure AI systems are practical and meet regulatory requirements.
- Track and apply new AI developments relevant to fintech and B2B trade.
- Set the technical bar for AI at Qawafel and grow into leading the team as the function expands.
Requirements
- Principal or staff-level applied AI engineering experience.
- Experience shipping production AI systems in fintech, banking, or another regulated environment.
- Hands-on experience building and operating production AI systems.
- Strong software engineering fundamentals and experience designing complex systems.
- Experience with LLMs, RAG, embeddings, vector databases, AI agents, and document intelligence (including multimodal models).
- Experience defining evaluation, observability, and monitoring for non-deterministic systems.
- Strong instincts around data handling, privacy, and auditability in regulated contexts.
- Comfortable as a senior IC today and open to moving into a team lead role as the function grows.
- Strong written and verbal communication in English and Arabic.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in SME financing, invoice financing, supply chain finance, embedded finance, or lending platforms.
- Experience working in startups, scaleups, or fast-moving product teams.
- Prior experience leading or mentoring engineers, with appetite to grow into a management role.
What We'Re Looking For
A senior AI engineer who can hold engineering, product, risk, and business needs in their head at the same time.
Someone who can take a complex financing workflow and turn it into a product that is simple to use and dependable in production.
Someone who wants to build it themselves now and grow the team that scales it later.
Apply for this job in 1 click
Skip the repetitive application forms
Install the Base Career Chrome Extension and autofill job applications across major job boards with your profile.
Trusted by over 500,000 job seekers on Base Career
More from this employer
More jobs at Qawafel | قوافل
Marketing Manager
Riyadh, KSA
Qawafel is seeking its first Marketing Manager to build the marketing function from scratch for a B2B fintech company in Saudi Arabia. The role involves owning brand, growth channels, product marketing, and communication
Fresh Product Engineer
Riyadh, KSA
Qawafel is hiring a Fresh Product Engineer to work with Product and Engineering teams on product discovery, requirements analysis, usability testing, and documentation. The role involves integration projects and customer
Product Manager
Riyadh, KSA
Product Manager Location: Saudi Arabia Type: Full-time Seniority: Mid Level About Qawafel Qawafel is building digital financial infrastructure for businesses in Saudi Arabia. Our mission is to make B2B financing, credit,
Senior Product Designer
Riyadh, KSA
Senior Product Designer Location: Saudi Arabia Type: Full-time Seniority: Senior About Qawafel Qawafel is building digital financial infrastructure for businesses in Saudi Arabia. We are focused on making B2B financing,