Principal AI Platform Operations Engineer
Western Governors University13 days ago
Raleigh, NC, USAStaff+
Base Salary
$202k - $313k/yr
Responsibilities
- Define WGU’s multi-year AI operations and platform vision, strategy, reference architectures, and engineering principles.
- Lead complex enterprise AI platform, migration, reliability, and operational capability initiatives.
- Establish governance for responsible AI, model risk, security, cost accountability, compliance, and regulatory requirements.
- Advise the CTO, engineering and security leadership, product leaders, and other executives on AI operations strategy and investments.
- Evaluate emerging AI operations tools, infrastructure, and practices and sponsor proof-of-concept initiatives.
- Design the team operating model, hiring criteria, competency framework, and engineering culture.
- Mentor and develop Staff, Senior, and II-level engineers through technical leadership, sponsorship, and knowledge-building.
- Represent WGU externally through conferences, partnerships, strategic vendors, publications, and thought leadership.
- Partner with legal, compliance, and privacy teams to ensure AI systems meet institutional and regulatory standards.
Requirements
- Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Physics, or a related field.
- 7+ years of hands-on experience deploying and operating ML/AI systems in production at scale.
- 5 years of experience working in an AI/ML context alongside Data Scientists or ML Engineers.
- 3 years of experience building large-scale machine learning or deep learning models on a cloud platform.
- Demonstrated organizational-level technical strategy or architectural vision experience and a record of delivering transformative AI platform or operations programs.
- Experience advising or influencing senior or executive leadership on AI operations strategy and investment.
- Experience leading or substantially contributing to AI governance, responsible AI, or model risk frameworks.
- Experience building and scaling AI engineering or operations teams, including hiring, competency development, and culture setting.
- Deep hands-on expertise in production AI reliability engineering, observability, and deployment at scale.
- Preferred qualifications include 10+ years in software engineering, data science, or machine learning; Databricks and AWS experience or certifications; Terraform, CloudFormation, and Kubernetes experience; regulated-environment experience; and recognized AI/MLOps thought leadership.
Benefits
- Full-time regular position with 40 standard weekly hours and bonus eligibility.
- Medical, dental, vision, telehealth, mental healthcare, health savings account, and flexible spending account benefits.
- Life, disability, accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity, legal, and identity theft coverage.
- Retirement savings plan, wellbeing program, and discounted WGU tuition.
- Flexible paid time off, flexible paid sick time, 11 paid holidays, and paid leave including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.
- Occasional travel of up to 20%, including required company summits and possible conferences or business travel.
Tech Stack
Categories
About Western Governors University
Western Governors University is a nonprofit, accredited online university offering competency-based bachelor’s and master’s degree programs for working adults in business, IT, teaching, and healthcare. It operates a tuition-based model with flat-rate terms that let students advance as they demonstrate proficiency. Founded in 1997 by 19 U.S. governors and based in the Salt Lake City, Utah area, WGU serves students nationwide through fully remote instruction and support.