About this role
Summary: The Principal AI Software Engineer serves as the sole subject matter expert for production-grade AI systems, platform architecture, and applied AI governance. This individual contributor role defines long-term strategy for AI adoption, establishes technical standards, and leads cross-functional integration to advanc...
The Team
Guided by our purpose, core values, and leadership principles, we are creating an airline people love. Our corporate teams set the strategies and operational plans to ensure the success of our company. Whether we use our expertise in accounting, human resources, finance, planning, legal, marketing, or any of our operational divisions, our shared passion for travel and our guests is what motivates us to achieve excellence each day. If you share our passion for creating an airline people love, we want to hear from you.
Role Summary
The Principal Artificial Intelligence (AI) Software Engineer role is the sole subject matter expert in production-grade AI systems, platform architecture, and applied AI governance. (process/discipline in the company). As an individual contributor, this role defines long-term strategy for AI adoption, technical standards, and cross-functional integration (process/discipline) and exercises considerable latitude and initiative to solve highly ambiguous, high-impact challenges that advance Alaska Airlines’ operational excellence, commercial differentiation, and AI maturity (complex problems).
Key Duties
- Architect and lead end-to-end development and deployment of AI solutions leveraging LLMs, generative AI, and agentic technologies, establishing reusable architectures and patterns that drive automation, operational efficiency, and strategic business outcomes.
- Design and build the AI platform that enables organizational self-service, maintaining ownership of system performance, reliability, and continuous improvement of AI capabilities.
- Exercise considerable latitude and initiative to solve ambiguous, high-impact challenges where problem definition, solution approach, and success criteria require significant discovery, including scaling AI from pilot to production, integrating AI into legacy operational systems, and defining governance approaches for novel AI use cases.
- Make decisions on technical architecture, sourcing strategies including build, buy, or partner approaches, and sequencing of AI initiatives based on business impact, technical feasibility, and organizational readiness, setting direction that shapes how AI is delivered across Alaska.
- Influence across company and several levels up to lead cross-functional prioritization and adoption of AI initiatives by influencing stakeholders across IT, business, and governance, risk, and compliance teams to ensure secure, compliant integration into enterprise systems.
- Partner with Product Management and business leaders to integrate AI/GenAI solutions into product roadmaps, ensuring technical feasibility and business value alignment.
- Ensure production excellence by implementing monitoring, evaluation frameworks, and optimization strategies that enable AI systems to meet or exceed performance targets and deliver measurable business results.
- Develop technical talent and set engineering standards through mentorship, technical leadership, and knowledge sharing that elevates the capabilities of the AI Engineering Team.
- Drive innovation through AI research and experimentation including evaluation of emerging technologies, new data sources, and advanced methodologies, with presentation of findings to executive leadership.
Job-Specific Experience, Education & Skills
Required
- 7 years of experience in software development experience with demonstrated expertise in multiple programming languages (Python, Java, Golang, C++, or similar).
- Bachelor’s degree with a focus in Computer Science or an additional two years of relevant training/experience in lieu of this degree.
- High school diploma or equivalent.
- Minimum age of 18.
- Must be authorized to work in the U.S.
Preferred
- 3+ years of experience leading technical architecture and design decisions for large-scale distributed systems, with demonstrated ability to evaluate emerging technologies and drive strategic platform investments through build vs buy decisions.
- 5+ years of experience designing, delivering, and operating ML/AI systems in production, including at least 2 years with Generative AI (LLMs, multi-modal models, agent frameworks, tool-calling, workflow orchestration systems).
- Demonstrated track record of leading cross-functional AI initiatives from concept through production adoption and scaling, including establishing monitoring, evaluation frameworks, and continuous improvement practices.
- Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science or related technical field.
- Experience designing ML/AI platforms that serve organization wide product and engineering teams.
- Published research, patents, technical blog posts, or conference presentations on AI/ML systems and architectures.
- Experience implementing AI governance frameworks including security controls, risk assessment, and adherence to industry standards.
- Track record of evaluating build vs buy decisions and successfully adopting emerging AI technologies (e.g., transformer-based models, agentic tool-use patterns, embedded inference) with measurable business impact.
- Experience upskilling engineering and product teams from traditional software development to AI native workflows.
- Experience developing accessible technologies.
Job-Specific Leadership Expectations
Embody our values to own safety, do the right thing, be caring and kind, and deliver performance.
Starting Rate
Salary Range
$141,250-$211,900 / year
Bonus
Salary Details
Pay will be based on multiple factors, including and not limited to location, relevant experience/level and skillset while balancing internal equity relative to other Alaska/Hawaiian/Horizon employees. Alaska/Hawaiian/Horizon is committed to fair, unbiased compensation along with competitive benefits in all locations in which we operate.
Note: We don’t typically hire at the top of the range.
Total Rewards
*Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Horizon Air pay and benefits can vary by company, location, number of regularly scheduled hours worked, length of employment, and employment status.*
- Free stand-by travel privileges on Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines & Horizon Air
- Comprehensive well-being programs including medical, dental and vision benefits
- Generous 401k match program
- Annual bonus plans
- Generous holiday and paid time off
For more information about Alaska/Hawaiian/Horizon Total Rewards please visit our career site and view benefits.
FLSA Status
Exempt
Regular/Temporary
Regular
Category
Software & Technology
Company (Set ID from Job Codes)
Alaska Airlines