Principal Systems Engineer (C++) - AI Infrastructure

Principal Systems Engineer (C++) — AI Infrastructure About The Role What if your systems engineering expertise could directly shape the infrastructure powering the world’s most advanced AI models? We’re looking for a Principal C++ Systems Engineer to design and build high-performance data pipelines, annotation tooling, and evaluation infrastructure used by leading AI research labs.

This is a fully remote, flexible contract role for an experienced engineer who thrives on solving hard problems at scale — someone who cares deeply about performance, reliability, and clean systems design.

• Organization: Alignerr
• Type: Hourly Contract
• Location: Remote
• Commitment: 20–40 hours/week

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and optimize high-performance C++ systems supporting AI data pipelines and evaluation workflows
• Develop full-stack tooling and backend services for large-scale data annotation, validation, and quality control
• Improve reliability, performance, and memory safety across production C++ codebases
• Collaborate closely with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training and evaluation workflows
• Identify bottlenecks and edge cases in system behavior, then implement scalable, maintainable solutions
• Participate in synchronous design reviews to iterate on architecture and implementation decisions

Who You Are

• Native or fluent English speaker with clear written and verbal communication
• Full-stack developer with a strong systems programming background
• 5+ years of professional experience writing production-grade C++ for large-scale systems
• Advanced knowledge of build system architecture and package management strategies
• Experienced designing reliable systems with rigorous error handling and memory sanitizers
• Self-directed and capable of committing 20–40 hours per week in a remote contract environment

Nice to Have

• Prior experience with data annotation, data quality pipelines, or evaluation systems
• Familiarity with AI/ML workflows, model training, or benchmarking infrastructure
• Experience with distributed systems or developer tooling
• Background working alongside research or applied ML teams

Why Join Us

• Work on real production systems at the frontier of AI — not toy projects
• Collaborate with top-tier AI labs and researchers on genuinely high-impact work
• Fully remote and flexible — structure your hours around your life
• Freelance autonomy with the depth and consistency of meaningful, ongoing technical work
• Potential for contract extension and expanded scope as projects evolve