Principal Software Engineer, Rapid Productization

Why join us?

This is a rare opportunity to help shape how our company brings AI innovation to life - bridging research and real-world usage at a moment when speed, safety, and product quality matter most. If you're energized by rapid iteration, high autonomy, and making AI tangible for millions, we’d love to talk.

We’re looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join our AI Engineering Rapid Productization team, a fast-moving group focused on turning cutting-edge AI capabilities into real-world, customer-facing features and applications at speed and scale.

This role blends deep technical leadership with hands-on implementation. You’ll help bring high-potential prototypes across the finish line, working closely with various AI Engineering teams to build scalable, secure, and user-friendly AI products.

What you’ll do

• Lead technical design and architecture for AI-powered product features, with a focus on velocity, quality, and maintainability

• Translate experimental prototypes into production-ready software, often on tight timelines and with high visibility

• Partner with the AI Catalyst team to productize models, pipelines, and data flows for real-time or batch inference

• Collaborate across engineering, product, and design to identify high-leverage build opportunities and remove blockers quickly

• Own implementation of critical systems (APIs, orchestration, observability, deployment), with a focus on speed and reliability 

• Demonstrate proficiency in Kubernetes for container orchestration and scalable deployments.

• Mentor senior engineers and contribute to a culture of technical excellence, velocity, and pragmatic decision-making

• Contribute to internal tooling, SDKs, and best practices that help scale AI feature delivery across the org
   

What you’ll bring

• Strong software engineering experience, including deep experience shipping production systems at scale

• Strong command of backend systems (Python, Go, or similar), cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or Azure), and CI/CD pipelines

• Hands-on experience with LLMs, generative AI, or ML model integration into customer-facing products

• Ability to move fast without compromising quality, thriving in environments where rapid iteration and high ownership are the norm

• A track record of driving cross-functional technical decisions and aligning teams around clear execution paths

• Excellent communication skills, easily communicating tradeoffs to stakeholders and bringing clarity to ambiguity

• Passion for shipping AI features that make a real-world impact, not just proving what’s technically possible
   

Nice to have

• Familiarity with tools like LangChain, vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate), or RLHF pipelines

• Experience in early-stage product incubation or 0→1 product delivery

• Contributions to internal AI platforms, model evaluation frameworks, or observability for AI systems

#LI-YB1

About Red Hat

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver high-performing Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Spread across 40+ countries, our associates work flexibly across work environments, from in-office, to office-flex, to fully remote, depending on the requirements of their role. Red Hatters are encouraged to bring their best ideas, no matter their title or tenure. We're a leader in open source because of our open and inclusive environment. We hire creative, passionate people ready to contribute their ideas, help solve complex problems, and make an impact.

Inclusion at Red Hat
Red Hat’s culture is built on the open source principles of transparency, collaboration, and inclusion, where the best ideas can come from anywhere and anyone. When this is realized, it empowers people from different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences to come together to share ideas, challenge the status quo, and drive innovation. Our aspiration is that everyone experiences this culture with equal opportunity and access, and that all voices are not only heard but also celebrated. We hope you will join our celebration, and we welcome and encourage applicants from all the beautiful dimensions that compose our global village.

Equal Opportunity Policy (EEO)
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