Principal Engineer, AI Platform
Epic Games · Cary, NC
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Jul 1, 2026
Cary, NC
Jul 20, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
Principal level · 12+ years · Remote · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
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
Roughly 250 people nationally plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 50–440
Applicant volume Light — Few people clear these requirements, so an application that does clear them gets looked at. Worth applying to even if you miss a nice-to-have.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762).
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 (10)
No work location is specified in the posting; Epic Games is headquartered in Cary, NC, but the role appears to be remote-eligible based on the absence of any location requirement. CBSA left blank accordingly.
Go is explicitly called out as essential ('comfort reading and writing Go microservices is essential given the stack'), with Rust or C++ listed as acceptable alternatives for the compiled-language requirement — captured as alternatives.
SPIFFE/SPIRE is listed in the requirements section with 'or equivalent workload identity' — alternatives field is left empty as no specific named alternative is given beyond the generic qualifier; the requirement itself is a hard gate.
OPA and OpenFGA are listed as interchangeable policy engine options ('OPA, OpenFGA, or comparable') in the requirements section — emitted as one skill with OpenFGA as the alternative.
OpenBao and Vault are listed as interchangeable secrets management options in the requirements section — emitted as one skill (Vault) with OpenBao as the alternative.
NATS JetStream and Redis appear in the role's narrative/responsibilities section describing the existing stack rather than in a formal requirements block — treated as preferred/context.
Neo4j, vector databases, and Cluster API appear in the final paragraph of the requirements section framed as 'Familiarity with' and 'experience operating' — the softer framing ('familiarity') distinguishes these from the hard gates above, so they are treated as preferred.
The role explicitly requires '4 years at staff or principal scope' within the 12+ year total — this seniority-within-experience qualifier is notable but cannot be represented in a single field; captured in the overall years minimum as 12.
No compensation figures are provided in the posting.
This posting reads as a fully-remote role, so it was scored against the national candidate pool rather than a single metro.
Read the full posting
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