Principal Software Engineer (AI-First Systems)

Standard Template Labs is a stealth-mode, AI-native startup reimagining the future of IT Service and Configuration Management. Backed by leading investors, we're leveraging AI, graph-based architecture, and exceptional design to transform how enterprises manage and engage with their technology ecosystems.

About the Role
We’re seeking a Principal Software Engineer to drive the AI-first technical vision, architecture, and execution of our core platform. This role is for a hands-on technical leader who blends deep engineering expertise with strategic thinking and a passion for building scalable, intelligent systems.

As a Principal Engineer, you’ll shape the architectural blueprint for an AI-native enterprise platform, mentor senior engineers, and partner with leadership to evolve both the technology stack and the engineering culture. You’ll help define what “AI-first engineering” truly means—where AI tools, models, and reasoning are built into every layer of how we design, code, and operate.

Responsibilities

• Architectural & Strategic Leadership

  • Define and evolve the architecture of our AI-native platform, embedding LLMs, automation, and graph intelligence into core workflows.

  • Partner with leadership to align AI capabilities with product strategy, identifying where reasoning, generation, and prediction can deliver exponential impact.

  • Make high-impact architectural decisions that balance experimentation with scalability, maintainability, and performance.

  • Establish technical principles for AI-augmented development, including prompt orchestration, retrieval pipelines, and model integration.

  • Collaborate cross-functionally to drive clarity on tradeoffs between custom models, third-party LLMs, and fine-tuned internal systems.

  Technical Execution & Hands-On Development

  • Design and build distributed, AI-enhanced systems that are performant, secure, and fault-tolerant.

  • Implement intelligent workflows powered by LLMs—automating data enrichment, decision-making, and natural language interactions.

  • Lead by example: write clean, high-quality code while adopting AI-assisted development tools like Claude, Windsurf, or Cursor.

  • Champion an engineering culture where AI is part of the developer toolkit, not an add-on.

  • Continuously evaluate and implement emerging AI frameworks, SDKs, and model APIs to expand our platform’s intelligence layer.

  Mentorship & Influence

  • Mentor engineers across teams, cultivating expertise in AI-driven architecture and engineering best practices.

  • Lead architectural reviews, design deep-dives, and system audits with a focus on AI-first design principles.

  • Help recruit, grow, and inspire a high-performing technical team that thrives on ownership and innovation.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including leadership in complex, high-scale environments.

• Proven success setting architectural direction across multiple teams or domains.

• Deep expertise in distributed systems, system design, and performance optimization.

• Hands-on experience (or strong curiosity) in LLMs, vector search, embeddings, or AI agent frameworks.

• Proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Go, Rust, Python, Java, C++).

• Strong understanding of data modeling, event-driven systems, caching, and scalable storage design.

• Experience mentoring senior engineers and shaping engineering culture and best practices.

• Familiarity with AI-assisted development environments and modern DevOps practices (CI/CD, observability, reliability).

Nice to Have

• Experience designing and scaling microservices or event-driven architectures.

• Exposure to containerization and orchestration tools (Docker, Kubernetes).

• Prior experience in high-throughput or low-latency systems.

• Open-source contributions or a portfolio showcasing technical leadership.

Why this Role

This is a rare opportunity to define the technical architecture of an AI-native enterprise platform from the ground up—one where AI is core to the product and the engineering process itself. You’ll be building systems that reason, automate, and adapt—while helping set the standard for how modern AI-first companies are engineered.

If you’re excited by the idea of engineering with AI, not just for AI, we’d love to meet.

What We Offer

• The opportunity to architect foundational features for an AI-first enterprise platform.

• The opportunity to take ownership of critical systems that scale to millions of users

• A culture that values craftsmanship, autonomy, and technical excellence

• Competitive compensation, equity, and benefits package

• Work from our Midtown Manhattan office alongside the founding team in a focused, collaborative environment. We're in-office five days a week, moving quickly and building together—with easy access to public transportation

As an equal opportunity employer, we don’t tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind. Whether that’s based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state or local laws.