[Hiring] Principal AI Engineer @Natera

Role Description

Natera is seeking a Principal AI Engineer to set technical direction for, and hands-on build of, the Vector Store GenAI Platform that powers document intelligence and retrieval across our Real-World Data (RWD) organization. This is a principal-level individual contributor role with architecture-plus-build ownership of retrieval, document processing, and ingestion systems.

• Define platform strategy and sequencing.
• Ship production code in a cloud environment.
• Raise the reliability and quality of search and retrieval.
• Prove new approaches through POCs and benchmarks.
• Partner with clinical, engineering, and product leaders to turn ambiguous priorities into a clear technical roadmap.
• Establish standards for how retrieval serves agents and re-extraction workflows.
• Deliver measurable improvements in platform quality and operability—with high autonomy and limited day-to-day direction.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field; an advanced degree or background in a clinical or life sciences discipline is a plus.
• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including substantial ownership of production systems at scale.
• 5+ years building and shipping AI/ML-powered applications in production, with deep hands-on experience in retrieval-augmented systems, vector search, and document-centric AI pipelines.
• Demonstrated track record as a principal or equivalent IC: setting technical direction for a platform or multi-team capability.
• Strong hands-on expertise in Python and modern software engineering practices.
• Experience designing and operating AI systems in cloud environments, with AWS strongly preferred.
• Proven ability to work independently as an architecture-plus-build IC.
• Experience with clinical or structured healthcare documents and document-centric search or RAG systems is strongly preferred.
• Experience in healthcare, life sciences, or other regulated industries is strongly preferred.
• Experience designing retrieval interfaces used by agents or multi-step LLM workflows is a plus.

Requirements

• Own platform architecture and hands-on delivery for the Vector Store GenAI Platform.
• Set technical direction for hybrid search and retrieval quality.
• Advance document parsing and chunking.
• Define and build stable, reproducible retrieval for agent and re-extraction workloads.
• Strengthen document classification and ingestion visibility.
• Continuously improve retrieval quality.
• Integrate LLM capabilities into existing production systems.
• Partner with clinical AI, engineering, product, and SME stakeholders.
• Provide principal-level technical leadership.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans for eligible employees and their dependents.
• Free testing for Natera employees and their immediate families.
• Fertility care benefits.
• Pregnancy and baby bonding leave.
• 401k benefits.
• Commuter benefits.
• Generous employee referral program.

Company Description

Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives.

• Highly dedicated team of statisticians, geneticists, doctors, laboratory scientists, business professionals, software engineers, and many other professionals.
• Commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace environment.
• Focus on changing the landscape of genetic disease management.