Principal Engineer, AI Acceleration

Description

Core IT builds and runs the technology, platforms and services that GM teams use at work. It supports product, design, engineering, manufacturing, operations and corporate functions by improving the tools and workflows they use every day.

The goal is secure, reliable tools that reduce the friction people face, so they can spend more time on the problems that matter most in their areas.

Responsibilities

• GM is applying AI to make everyday work simpler by cutting manual effort and friction, so engineers and business teams can focus on higher-value results.
• This is a hands-on technical leadership role, not a research or advisory one. You will spot high-leverage opportunities, then design, build and scale AI-powered tools that measurably improve how people work. The aim is 10x to 100x gains, not small improvements.
• Example: design's brand guidelines sit in Figma. Instead of keeping static templates, the team built an AI skill that reads the guidelines, drafts on-brand presentations and runs a linter that flags off-brand choices. Tasks that took days now take minutes, and the guidelines remain the single source of truth. You will find and build the next dozen tools like this.
• Work directly with product, design, engineering, manufacturing, operations and corporate teams to understand the real problems behind their requests. Move quickly from discovery and prototypes to production-quality solutions, keeping standards for security, privacy, reliability, responsible AI and supportability.
• Find opportunities by embedding with teams to spot slow, manual, repetitive or error-prone work where AI can bring a step change in speed, quality or user experience.
• Prototype and ship quickly: build and test working solutions, check their value with users, and turn the successful ones into reliable, maintainable, supported production tools.
• Build on GM-approved AI and enterprise technologies, connecting to the systems where work already happens, such as Google Workspace, Figma, Jira, enterprise data platforms and other relevant services.
• Set engineering practices for requirements, architecture, testing, observability, security, privacy, access control, deployment, incident response and lifecycle management. Work with security, legal, privacy and risk partners to set practical guardrails for safe, responsible AI use.
• Define success metrics such as time saved, quality, adoption, cycle time, cost and user satisfaction. Retire or revise solutions that do not deliver meaningful results.
• Turn successful work into reusable reference architectures, patterns, components, documentation and enablement so other teams can adopt it and extend it after launch.
• Mentor engineers, raise the quality bar in design and code reviews, and explain tradeoffs and recommendations to both technical and executive audiences.

Requirements

• You have 10+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including production software used by customers or employees.
• You have served as a Principal Engineer, senior technical leader or equivalent, influencing several teams or organizations.
• You have hands-on experience building AI or LLM-enabled applications, agents or automations across many AI tools and models, not just one or two.
• You understand LLM application patterns: prompting, retrieval-augmented generation, tool use, context management, model selection, evaluation and observability.
• You have integrated AI solutions with enterprise applications, APIs, data sources, identity systems and workflow platforms.
• You have strong software engineering fundamentals: architecture, APIs, distributed systems, testing, CI/CD, monitoring, security and operational excellence.
• You can turn ambiguous business problems into clear product and technical strategies, then deliver working solutions iteratively.
• You use data and user feedback to set priorities and assess adoption, quality and measurable impact.
• You have helped people and teams adopt AI tools and keep using them after rollout.
• You communicate well and collaborate, influencing executives, technical experts and frontline users.
• You work with a high degree of autonomy, make decisions with incomplete information and own outcomes.
• You hold a high bar for quality and craft, caring whether the output is genuinely good, not just whether it runs.
• Competitive edge: experience building internal developer platforms, productivity tools, workflow automation, enterprise AI products or employee-facing software.
• Competitive edge: experience with agentic systems, Model Context Protocol (MCP), AI skills, orchestration, evaluation frameworks or multi-model solutions.
• Competitive edge: experience with Glean, Claude, Gemini, Figma AI, Google Workspace, Jira or comparable enterprise AI and productivity platforms.
• Competitive edge: experience setting AI engineering standards, reusable patterns, governance or responsible-use practices in a large organization.
• Competitive edge: experience measuring developer or employee productivity through cycle time, quality, adoption, satisfaction or cost avoidance.
• Competitive edge: experience mentoring senior engineers and building communities of practice.
• Competitive edge: experience with creative or design workflows, enterprise data systems, or manufacturing and automotive environments.

Conditions

This role is remote. If you live within a specific mile radius of a GM hub, you are expected to report to that location 3 times a week, or at another frequency set by your manager.

GM does not provide immigration sponsorship for this role. Do not apply if you will need GM immigration sponsorship now or in the future, including direct company sponsorship, GM as the immigration employer of record on a government form, or any work authorization that requires a written submission or other immigration support from the company, such as H1-B, OPT, STEM OPT, CPT, TN or J-1.

Candidates may be required, where applicable, to complete a role-related assessment and/or a pre-employment screening before starting.

GM is committed to a workplace free of unlawful discrimination that also fosters inclusion and belonging.

Benefits

• Relocation benefits are available to candidates who qualify under company policy.
• Well-being support starts on day one, at work and at home. Total Rewards resources explain the rewards available to you.