About this role
Vertex seeks a Principal Full Stack AI Engineer to build secure, reliable AI-powered applications and agents for internal and user-facing workflows. The role owns solutions from user experience and application services through agent orchestration, enterprise integration, deployment, and production operations. It uses a forward-deployed approach, working directly with users and stakeholders to refine solutions based on real-world needs.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and productionize full-stack AI applications, agents, and multi-step workflows. Build agents that invoke tools and APIs, retrieve information, and act within enterprise guardrails; develop reusable prompts, components, tools, and orchestration patterns.
- Deliver interfaces, services, APIs, data access, and integrations with internal platforms, third-party applications, and business-critical systems. Improve agent behavior using usage data, feedback, evaluations, testing, benchmarking, and operational metrics.
- Partner with product, platform, data, integration, and security teams. Establish practices for tool use, fallback and escalation, human-in-the-loop workflows, observability, compliance, and responsible AI. Support architecture, development, deployment, monitoring, troubleshooting, and production optimization.
Required qualifications
A bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, or a related technical field; equivalent practical experience may be considered. Experience in full-stack or AI-related engineering, delivering end-to-end applications, and building and operating production applications powered by large language models, AI workflows, or agents is required. Candidates must have used AI coding assistants and autonomous coding agents across software development and have experience establishing governance and responsible-use practices. Required technical capabilities include prompt engineering, agent orchestration, API and service design, data modeling, cloud development, distributed systems, enterprise integration, AI evaluation, observability, secure development, version control, and CI/CD. Strong problem-solving, systems thinking, stakeholder collaboration, and communication are also required.
Preferred
Forward-deployed delivery experience; internal copilots or task-oriented agents; orchestration frameworks, retrieval patterns, AI evaluation, human-in-the-loop safeguards, and AI tracing; and experience in regulated industries such as biotechnology or healthcare.
Boston-based employees may choose hybrid work with up to two remote days weekly or five on-site days with ad hoc flexibility, subject to company policy. The listed base pay range is $166,640–$250,000; the role is eligible for an annual bonus and equity awards. Benefits include health coverage, paid time off, educational assistance, a commuting subsidy, and a 401(k).