Principal Engineer, Generative & Agentic AI

Principal Engineer, Generative & Agentic AI

Join to apply for the Principal Engineer, Generative & Agentic AI role at Zip Co
.

• Visionary systems thinker with a proven ability to design and deliver Agentic AI-native architectures that scale across ambiguity, evolving data, and dynamic user needs.
• Track record of translating frontier ideas like autonomous agents and adaptive workflows into resilient production systems that drive measurable product value.
• Remote‑first opportunity for US‑based employees with the option to work in‑person out of our NYC office.

Start your adventure with Zip

ZIP is entering a new chapter—one where software is no longer static, reactive, or manually tuned. We’re reimagining our platform with Generative AI and Agentic systems at its core, enabling autonomous, adaptive capabilities across our products and operations. To lead this charge, we’re hiring our first Principal Engineer for Generative and Agentic AI
. This isn’t a support role. It’s a foundational seat on the team and a key member of our in‑house innovation group. If you’ve spent your career at the frontier of AI, this is your opportunity to build from the ground up in a greenfield environment with enterprise‑grade ambition.

You’ll collaborate across engineering, product, design, and applied research to transform emerging agentic AI patterns into resilient, production‑grade systems. We’re focused on delivering intelligent, self‑improving solutions that drive real outcomes. If you’re energized by the opportunity to help define the future of autonomous, AI‑native software, we’d love to connect.

• Design and build intelligent, autonomous systems that directly enhance the customer experience, enabling AI‑powered interactions, personalized repayment journeys, intelligent support agents, and the foundation for a new generation of AI‑first products in a dynamic, regulated fintech environment.
• Prototype quickly, scale deliberately, evaluating emerging frameworks and models, running experiments, and hardening the most promising approaches for production deployment in real‑world financial systems.
• Collaborate across engineering, product, design, compliance, and applied research to identify high‑impact use cases and deliver intelligent systems that are resilient, secure, and deeply aligned with user needs.
• Architect the AI foundation, selecting and integrating the right mix of LLMs, orchestration frameworks, vector databases, memory strategies, and tooling to give our agentic systems both intelligence and structure.
• Champion and evangelize AI‑powered engineering, establishing and upholding best practices across performance, observability, scalability, and responsible AI, ensuring that everything we build operates with trust, regulatory compliance, and enterprise‑grade reliability at scale.
• Mentor and inspire engineers, cultivating a culture of technical depth, curiosity, and bold innovation as we grow ZIP’s AI capabilities from team‑level efforts to a core pillar of our platform strategy.
• Build fast and learn faster, operating with urgency, deploying frequently, and using real feedback from customers and stakeholders to iterate and improve continuously.
• Stay at the frontier of agentic AI, tracking new developments across academia and industry, and selectively introducing promising techniques that align with our mission to deliver intelligent, adaptive, and customer‑centric fintech experiences.

• BS and MS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field;
  PhD in AI, ML, or a related domain strongly preferred.
• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years of focused, hands‑on work with Large Language Models (LLMs), Agentic AI, and generative AI systems.
• Demonstrated success leading the design, development, and deployment of production‑grade AI/ML systems, including large‑scale inference, context management, and continuous learning.

• Deep expertise in backend systems and distributed architecture;
  Python required; additional fluency in languages such as C#, C++, Go, or Rust are a plus.
• Extensive experience with agent frameworks,…