Principal Engineer

About Ori

Ori is setting a new standard for how AI worlds are built. We are the first AI Infrastructure provider with the native expertise, comprehensive capabilities, and end-to-end flexibility to support any model, team, or scale. As a fast-growing startup backed by leading investors, we value ambition, accessibility, and collaboration, and are committed to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in the field of AI. Join our close-knit, global team and help us build the future of AI infrastructure!

Job Summary

As a Principal Software Engineer at Ori, you’ll be a hands-on technical leader, driving the design and development of our most critical systems, including our GPU orchestration layer, inference-serving infrastructure, and core platform APIs.

You’ll set the standard for engineering excellence across the team, working closely with other principal engineers to align on strategy and drive technical leadership. You’ll partner with peers in infrastructure and machine learning to deliver high-performance AI systems, and mentor engineers across multiple squads. While you won’t have direct reports, you’ll play a pivotal role in shaping engineering direction, design decisions, and cross-team collaboration.

What You’ll Do :

• Architect and build core backend services in Go that power AI infrastructure, inference orchestration, and model lifecycle management
• Design and implement scalable APIs (gRPC/REST) and backend systems that manage GPU, storage, and model-serving workloads at scale
• Lead engineering design efforts across the backend domain — architecture reviews, and system evolution strategies
• Collaborate closely with platform, infrastructure, and ML teams to deliver reliable, production-grade services
• Develop Kubernetes Operators and controllers to extend and automate our control plane, enabling dynamic, GPU-aware scheduling and orchestration
• Drive technical standards and mentorship, upholding code quality, observability, and maintainability across teams
• Act as a domain expert in AI/ML system architecture, supporting technical leads and guiding strategic technical decisions
• Proactively identify and resolve architectural bottlenecks, performance issues, or scaling challenges

What you bring:

• Proven expertise in Golang and cloud-native backend development
• Deep experience designing and deploying distributed systems and APIs (gRPC, REST) in production environments
• Strong knowledge of Kubernetes internals, with hands-on experience building operators, CRDs, or Kubernetes-native controllers
• Familiarity with GPU scheduling, inference pipelines, or resource-constrained workload orchestration
• Experience with PostgreSQL or equivalent high-performance data stores
• Strong grounding in DevOps, CI/CD workflows, observability, security and automation best practices
• Demonstrated ability to lead technically: mentor others, drive architectural thinking, and influence across teams
• A bias for action, accountability, and leading by example

Preferred Skills (Nice to Have)

• Experience with AI/ML infrastructure tooling (e.g. vLLM, KServe, Ray, Triton)
• Familiarity with Python, especially ML libraries and model interfaces
• Exposure to GPU orchestration frameworks or building services for model training/inference
• Understanding of multi-tenant systems, isolation strategies, and secure infrastructure for AI workloads

How you work:

• You approach problems with a systems mindset - balancing practical execution with long-term scalability
• You elevate the team, setting high standards for technical quality and engineering excellence.
• You hold yourself and others accountable - giving direct feedback and expecting the same
• You take initiative, owning challenges end-to-end and proactively driving solutions.
• You invest in others, mentoring to build both capability and confidence.
• You communicate clearly - translating complexity into clarity across engineering and business audiences

Salary Range Information

Based on market data and other factors, the salary range for this position is £85,000-125,000 and will vary depending on the candidate's experience.

• Design and implement scalable APIs (gRPC/REST) and backend systems that manage GPU, storage, and model-serving workloads at scale
• Lead engineering design efforts across the backend domain — architecture reviews, and system evolution strategies
• Collaborate closely with platform, infrastructure, and ML teams to deliver reliable, production-grade services
• Develop Kubernetes Operators and controllers to extend and automate our control plane, enabling dynamic, GPU-aware scheduling and orchestration
• Drive technical standards and mentorship, upholding code quality, observability, and maintainability across teams
• Act as a domain expert in AI/ML system architecture, supporting technical leads and guiding strategic technical decisions
• Proactively identify and resolve architectural bottlenecks, performance issues, or scaling challenges

What you bring:

• Proven expertise in Golang and cloud-native backend development
• Deep experience designing and deploying distributed systems and APIs (gRPC, REST) in production environments
• Strong knowledge of Kubernetes internals, with hands-on experience building operators, CRDs, or Kubernetes-native controllers
• Familiarity with GPU scheduling, inference pipelines, or resource-constrained workload orchestration
• Experience with PostgreSQL or equivalent high-performance data stores
• Strong grounding in DevOps, CI/CD workflows, observability, security and automation best practices
• Demonstrated ability to lead technically: mentor others, drive architectural thinking, and influence across teams
• A bias for action, accountability, and leading by example

Preferred Skills (Nice to Have)

• Experience with AI/ML infrastructure tooling (e.g. vLLM, KServe, Ray, Triton)
• Familiarity with Python, especially ML libraries and model interfaces
• Exposure to GPU orchestration frameworks or building services for model training/inference
• Understanding of multi-tenant systems, isolation strategies, and secure infrastructure for AI workloads

How you work:

• You approach problems with a systems mindset - balancing practical execution with long-term scalability
• You elevate the team, setting high standards for technical quality and engineering excellence.
• You hold yourself and others accountable - giving direct feedback and expecting the same
• You take initiative, owning challenges end-to-end and proactively driving solutions.
• You invest in others, mentoring to build both capability and confidence.
• You communicate clearly - translating complexity into clarity across engineering and business audiences

Salary Range Information

Based on market data and other factors, the salary range for this position is £85,000-125,000 and will vary depending on the candidate's experience.

Qualities we look for:

• Set the standard: Every single day, you spot opportunities to constructively shake things up.
• Inspire the change: There's no blueprint for the future. You’ll embrace challenges and change.
• You’re real and you’re true to yourself: We cherish and celebrate diversity so you’ll feel right at home whoever you are and whoever you’re talking to, you treat everyone the same.

Why should you join us?

What sets us apart is our blend of modern technology, competitive benefits, and an open, welcoming work culture that enables our people to thrive.

Here are just some of the great things you can expect from us:

• Remote work, flexible hours: we offer a fully remote work schedule, with flexible working hours and trust in your productivity, we are in sync with your team’s general locations and time zones to foster effective and seamless collaboration.
• 30 days of annual leave: we value your peace of mind. With 30 days off (excluding public holidays) and access to mental health resources, we make sure you're as strong mentally as you are professionally.
• A culture that emphasises results over hierarchy, process & ego: we place great emphasis on the quality, ingenuity and creativity of work.
• Open communication, regular feedback: we value smooth collaboration, direct and actionable feedback, and believe that leading with empathy and a growth mindset makes us better together.
• Learning Time: we all have dedicated learning time to focus on new skills, projects or interests that lay outside of your day-to-day job.
• Health & Wellbeing: we want everyone to feel healthy and happy, so we offer private medical insurance via Bupa.
• Cycle to Work Scheme: we're committed to building a sustainable business, so we encourage cycling to work.
• Gympass subscription to a variety of gyms and wellbeing apps
• Participation in the company shares program
• Enhanced parental pay & leave

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging

We are an equal opportunity employer and we strive to reduce unconscious bias throughout our hiring process. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, veteran, neurodiversity status or disability status. To ensure our recruitment processes provide an equal opportunity for all applicants to succeed, we encourage you to let us know if there are any adjustments that we can make.