Principal AI Engineer

At Berg Search, we are committed to helping innovative companies thrive by delivering top-tier talent solutions. With deep expertise in recruiting for tech, marketing, and other critical roles, we connect ambitious companies with the perfect talent to accelerate growth. Founded by experienced entrepreneurs, we know that the right hire makes all the difference.

On behalf of our client, we are recruiting for a Principal AI Engineer. The client is a tech-driven expert network and primary research platform that helps consulting and private equity firms discover the knowledge they need to make better decisions. The platform connects clients with industry experts, curates knowledge at scale, and unlocks insights hidden across vast amounts of structured and unstructured information.

You’all shape how AI systems, large language models, and intelligent retrieval experiences power discovery across our platform. This is a highly strategic engineering role focused on building production-grade AI capabilities that combine LLMs, semantic understanding, recommendation systems, and modern data infrastructure to deliver exceptional user experiences.

You’ll work at the intersection of applied AI, product strategy, and platform architecture - helping define how AI becomes a core capability across the business.

The key duties of this role will include:

AI & LLM Platform Strategy

• Define and lead the AI roadmap for intelligent discovery and knowledge systems.
• Design and implement production-grade applications powered by frontier LLMs (OpenAI, Gemini, Anthropic, etc.).
• Architect systems that combine:
• LLM-driven retrieval and reasoning
• Semantic search and embeddings
• Agentic workflows
• Recommendation systems
• Knowledge enrichment pipelines
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and define where they create business value.
• Partner with product and leadership teams to align AI capabilities with strategic goals.

Intelligent Retrieval & Knowledge Systems

• Build AI-powered retrieval experiences across structured and unstructured data.
• Design semantic indexing and enrichment pipelines using modern embedding models.
• Develop systems that improve relevance, ranking, summarization, and recommendations using AI.
• Implement knowledge extraction workflows leveraging LLMs and automated entity linking.
• Explore how graph-based data and contextual retrieval can enhance discovery experiences.

AI Engineering & Infrastructure

• Architect scalable AI services and data pipelines on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Build reliable, observable, and cost-efficient production systems.
• Develop APIs, orchestration layers, and backend services in Python.
• Work closely with engineering teams to operationalize AI systems safely and effectively.
• Establish best practices for evaluation, monitoring, and continuous improvement of AI applications.

Technical Leadership

• Lead strategic technical initiatives across AI and platform engineering.
• Mentor engineers and help establish strong AI engineering practices.
• Drive experimentation while maintaining a strong focus on production quality and user impact.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, data, and commercial teams.

Requirements

• 7+ years building and scaling production search or retrieval systems.
• Strong experience designing search architectures, not just operating them.
• Experience evaluating and selecting search technologies.
• Experience with semantic search and embeddings-based retrieval.
• Experience building pipelines on top of frontier LLMs (OpenAI, Gemini).
• Strong Python skills.
• Experience leading technical initiatives in mid-sized teams.
• Experience working with cloud-native systems (preferably GCP).