Principal ML Platform Engineer

Principal ML Platform Engineer

Lead the engineering of software that matters — driving AI automation for the world's largest enterprises.

This role is based at our ​h​eadquarters in ​McLean, Virginia. Appian was built on a culture of in-person collaboration, which we believe is a key driver of our mission to be the best. Employees hired for this position are expected to be in the office 5 days a week to foster that culture and ensure we continue to thrive through shared ideas and teamwork. We believe being in the office provides more opportunities to come together and celebrate working with the exceptional people across Appian.

About the Team

Appian Engineering spans the full depth of our platform: from the foundational layers that power enterprise scale, to the AI capabilities redefining what automation can do. We operate in a highly collaborative, fast-paced environment focused on technical precision, continuous learning, and high code quality. By joining our team, you will solve real-world problems that directly shape how Appian delivers our AI-Powered Process Automation platform to enterprises around the world.

The Opportunity

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will serve as a technical linchpin for the team, bringing deep expertise in cloud-native architecture and a track record of influencing engineering direction beyond your immediate scope. Equipped with cutting-edge AI tooling, you will drive the design and delivery of high-complexity engineering solutions, set the technical bar for the team, and lead other engineers towards solutions of real complexity to ensure flawless Enterprise-Grade Orchestration.

What You’ll Do

• Develop Clean Software: Architect, build, and optimize high-performance software systems while maintaining a strong personal technical presence on the team.

• Lead Platform Modernization: Spearhead strategic technological changes and champion code refactoring efforts to keep the core Appian codebase cutting-edge, modern, and performant.

• Engineer with AI: Use AI coding tools fluently as a force multiplier: generating, reviewing, and critically evaluating AI-assisted code to ship faster without compromising quality or correctness.

• Lead Architecture & Delivery: Drive technical story breakdowns, acceptance criteria, and architectural design across complex, multi-tier application layers — from feature scoping through implementation.

• Optimize Performance & Scale: Manage product availability, latency, scalability, and efficiency by engineering deep reliability into our core software systems and performing advanced system tuning.

• Drive Engineering Excellence: Radiate development best practices across the department, perform meticulous code reviews on design and implementation, and build automation frameworks to prevent problem recurrence.

• Lead & Grow Engineers: Actively coach and mentor engineers at multiple levels, identify and close skill gaps on the team, and take ownership of accelerating the technical growth of those around you.

• Influence Technical Documentation: Share your expert domain knowledge regularly across the department, building a reputation as a vital resource and publishing high-quality content to Engineering’s permanent documentation site.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Minimum of a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science or a related technical/analytical discipline. (Equivalent experience is not accepted in lieu of a degree).

• Experience: 10+ years of relevant software development experience with a BS (or 8+ years of experience paired with a Master of Science in Computer Science or related field).

• Technical Mastery: Expert coding, scripting, and debugging proficiency in one or more core enterprise programming languages, specifically Java, Python, or Go.

• Domain Expertise: Deep working knowledge of distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and the ability to contribute meaningfully at a senior individual contributor level within that space.

• Cross-Team Influence: Demonstrated ability to drive technical decisions and shape engineering practices beyond a single team or project scope.

• AI-Augmented Development: Demonstrated experience using AI coding assistants and a strong ability to evaluate, coach others on, and selectively apply AI-generated code in a production engineering context.

• Production Mastery: Proven experience developing, optimizing, and maintaining a high-volume, mission-critical production service environment.

• Communication & Alignment: Exceptional ability to communicate highly technical architectures verbally, visually, and in writing to diverse engineering audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Cloud Architecture: Strong experience designing microservices, working with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and implementing modern CI/CD pipelines.

• Cloud Platforms: Deep experience developing and operating infrastructure across public cloud ecosystems, specifically AWS, Azure, and/or GCP.

• We value experience with enterprise platforms such as Salesforce or ServiceNow, as these skills translate well into our Enterprise-Grade Orchestration environment.

What We Equip You With

• High-Impact Autonomy: A leadership environment where you will have real ownership over your team’s direction, the latitude to make meaningful decisions, and participation in broader Engineering discussions.

• New Hire Orientation: A robust onboarding experience designed to integrate you smoothly into our technology, culture, and leadership model so you can show up for your team from day one.

• Continuous Enablement: Access to premier learning resources and dedicated learning time focused on both your continued technical growth and your evolution as an engineering leader.

• Sponsored Certifications: Full corporate sponsorship for professional technical certifications to advance your engineering credentials.