Principal AI Engineer at Ontrac Solutions
San Francisco, CA
$208,000–$249,600
Jun 29, 2026
San Francisco, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior individual-contributor role focused on designing and delivering production-scale Generative AI systems — including RAG pipelines, agentic workflows, and multi-model routing — inside a regulated banking environment. The work spans architecture definition, hands-on delivery of financial services use cases, and embedding governance and compliance requirements into AI solutions from the ground up. The role also carries a strong cross-organizational influence component, including mentoring engineers and shaping enterprise AI platform roadmaps.
Principal level · 7+ years · National
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $135,980 (middle half $105,210–$171,980).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The title 'Principal GenAI Architect / Forward Deployed Principal Engineer' explicitly claims Principal level, and the scope — org-wide GenAI authority, influencing platform roadmaps across multiple lines of business, mentoring staff-level engineers, and representing the enterprise in governance forums — genuinely supports Principal rather than Staff.
SOC classification is Medium confidence: the role is primarily hands-on architecture and engineering (15-1252 Software Developers), but its heavy AI/ML system design focus could also fit 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other), listed as the runner-up.
The 2-year minimums for Python, LLMs, RAG, prompt engineering, vector databases, semantic search, API-driven architecture, and distributed systems all appear under the explicit 'Required Qualifications' heading and are treated as hard gates.
'Semantic search' and 'retrieval systems' are listed together in one required bullet alongside vector databases; semantic search is captured as a separate named skill since it represents a distinct capability.
Agentic AI frameworks and AI workflow orchestration appear under 'Preferred Qualifications' and are marked accordingly.
No compensation, degree requirement, or remote/hybrid policy is stated in the posting.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): cloud-native architecture, AI workflow orchestration.
Read the full posting
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