# Principal Applied AI Engineer at Appian

- Company: Appian
- What the company does: AI automation for critical processes. Appian orchestrates AI agents, systems, and people on an enterprise platform, without replacing your systems. Backed by NEA.
- Company website: https://appian.com/
- Type: Startups (AI role)
- Level: Principal and up
- Location: McLean, Virginia
- Work setup: On-site
- Posted: 2026-09-11
- Apply by: 2026-10-26
- Apply: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/appian/jobs/8192318
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/appian-principal-applied-ai-engineer/

## About the role

As a Principal Applied AI Engineer, you will serve as the technical linchpin for applied AI on the team, bringing deep hands-on expertise in designing and operating production LLM systems and a track record of influencing engineering direction beyond your immediate scope.

## What they're looking for

- Education: Minimum of a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science or a related technical/analytical discipline. (Equivalent experience is not accepted in lieu of a degree)
- Experience: 10+ years of relevant software development experience with a BS (or 8+ years of experience paired with a Master of Science in Computer Science or related field)
- Production LLM Systems: Deep hands-on experience designing and operating production LLM systems
- AI Systems Expertise: Demonstrated expertise across code generation, agents, retrieval, structured generation, tool use, model routing, evaluation, and observability
- AI-Augmented Development: Demonstrated experience using AI coding assistants and a strong ability to evaluate, coach others on, and selectively apply AI-generated code in a production engineering context
- Domain Expertise: Strong distributed-systems, API, security, and reliability foundations, with the ability to contribute meaningfully at a senior individual contributor level within that space

Tags: Engineering