Principal Software Engineer - AI

The Principal Software Engineer - AI leads the architecture and delivery of enterprise-grade AI solutions on the Enterprise AI Solutions team, with a focus on agentic AI and RAG based assistants to improve internal workflows, decision-making, and efficiency across New Balance.

Details

• Location: Brighton, MA (hybrid)
• Salary: USD 120,000 - 180,000 per year
• Minimum Experience: 10 years
• Education: Degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a closely related field

Job Mission

New Balance seeks an seasoned Principal Software Engineer to join the Enterprise AI Solutions team. The role centers on researching and delivering AI based capabilities across multiple business functions, including operations, supply chain, finance, product, and corporate services. A core focus is designing and building enterprise grade AI assistants and automations using RAG and agentic AI techniques that can plan, coordinate tools, interact with systems, and execute multi-step workflows with appropriate guardrails.

Major Accountabilities

• Architect Agentic Systems: define the architectural blueprint for autonomous and semi-autonomous agents that coordinate multi-step business processes across diverse enterprise systems.
• Strategic Collaboration: partner with Finance, Supply Chain, and Product leadership to identify high-value automation opportunities and translate them into scalable AI solutions.
• AI Platform Development: lead the selection and deployment of models, tools, frameworks, and SDKs across Open Source and Microsoft AI ecosystems, including Foundry and Copilot Studio, while upholding security, privacy, and cost-efficiency standards.
• System Design & Guardrails: design robust human-in-the-loop systems and technical guardrails to ensure AI agents operate reliably and safely within a complex corporate environment.
• Prototype to Production: oversee the full lifecycle of AI deployments from PoC to production-grade integration with internal APIs and databases.
• Technical Mentorship: serve as a subject matter expert on LLM orchestration, guiding engineers on best practices for RAG and agentic reasoning.

Requirements

• 10+ years of software development experience, with at least 4 years focused on AI, Machine Learning, and Large Language Models.
• Proven experience with agentic frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, or Semantic Kernel.
• Expertise in the Microsoft AI ecosystem, including Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, and Microsoft Copilot Studio.
• Advanced Python skills, focused on building scalable, highly concurrent, maintainable enterprise backends.
• Frontend experience with React or a similar framework.
• Strong systems integration background, including designing RESTful APIs and integrating AI agents with ERP, CRM, and SQL/NoSQL databases.
• Architectural vision to differentiate hype from utility and select the appropriate AI approach (RAG, fine-tuning, or prompt engineering) for a given business problem.
• Effective communication skills to explain complex AI logic and agentic workflows to non-technical stakeholders, using clear visuals.
• Education: Degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a closely related field

Preferred Qualifications

• Vector Database Proficiency: experience with vector stores such as Azure AI Search.
• Agentic Memory & State: familiarity with persistent memory and long-term state management for multi-session AI agents.
• DevOps for AI: experience establishing LLMOps pipelines to monitor model performance, drift, and hallucination rates.
• Frontend Basics: familiarity with Chainlit or Streamlit for rapid internal prototyping of agent interfaces.
• Security Background: understanding of prompt injection mitigation and secure data handling in GenAI applications.

Technologies

• LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel
• Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry
• React, Python
• RESTful APIs

Benefits

• Medical insurance options (three options) for regular associates
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Life insurance
• 401K
• Online learning and development courses
• Tuition reimbursement
• $100 monthly student loan support
• Mentorship programs
• $1,000 yearly lifestyle reimbursement
• 4 weeks of vacations
• 12 holidays
• Generous parental leave
• Associate discount
• Medical insurance options for temporary associates
• Dental insurance for temporary associates
• Vision insurance for temporary associates
• Associate discount for temporary associates
• 401K for part-time associates
• Short term disability
• $300 yearly lifestyle reimbursement for part-time associates
• Associate discount for part-time associates

Flexible Work Schedule

New Balance maintains a North American hybrid model that emphasizes in-person collaboration and teamwork. Associates currently work in the office three days per week, specifically Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The offices are fully open and amenities are available at our North American locations.

Equal Opportunity Employer

New Balance provides equal opportunities for all current and prospective associates to ensure that employment, training, compensation, transfer, promotion and other terms, conditions and privileges of employment are provided without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, genetic information and/or veteran status, including Armed Forces service medal veterans, recently separated veterans, or other protected veterans.