[Hiring] Principal AI Engineer @McKesson

Role Description

The Principal AI Engineer provides the highest level of individual-contributor technical leadership for the company's AI platform, operating one level above the Lead AI Engineer role. This person sets the multi-year architecture strategy for agentic and LLM-powered systems across every team that builds on the AI platform. In a highly regulated healthcare environment, the Principal AI Engineer resolves the hardest, most ambiguous technical problems facing the platform and shapes how the entire engineering organization adopts AI safely and effectively.

Success is measured by:

• The durability and adoption of the technical strategy set across multiple teams.
• The ability to unblock cross-organizational technical risk before it becomes a delivery or compliance problem.
• Influence on AI investment decisions at the executive level.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience; typically 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 6+ years focused on AI/ML, LLM, or NLP systems in production and 3+ years operating as a senior individual-contributor technical leader. Fewer years required with a relevant Master's or Doctorate.

Requirements

• One level of demonstrated technical leadership above a Lead AI Engineer.
• Proven track record setting technical strategy that multiple teams adopt.
• Deep, hands-on expertise building production LLM applications at scale.
• Experience with commercial large language model APIs and tool-integration protocols.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: Python and/or Java, REST APIs, event-driven architecture, microservices, and cloud-native design.
• Experience with vector/graph retrieval systems, embeddings, and knowledge-base architectures at production scale.
• Deep working knowledge of LLMOps/MLOps.
• Demonstrated ability to influence and align senior engineering and executive stakeholders without direct authority.
• Deep familiarity with regulated/healthcare data environments and AI governance frameworks.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation package.
• Base Pay Range: $195,000 - $325,000.
• Annual bonus or long-term incentive opportunities may be offered.