Principal Data & AI Engineer

Job#: 3029222

Job Description:
Principal Data & AI Engineer

Location: Charlotte, North Carolina (Onsite)

Employment Type: Contract

Contract Duration: 12 Months

Role Overview

This role is responsible for defining and leading the engineering approach for complex, data-driven and AI-enabled features that deliver meaningful and measurable business outcomes through customer insights. As a senior member of the team, you will serve as a technical thought leader and hands-on contributor, partnering with technology teams to design and deliver scalable analytics, AI, and agentic intelligence solutions. The candidate will help shape platforms that support advanced analytics, machine learning, and autonomous workflows.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the engineering design and implementation of enterprise-scale data, analytics, and AI platforms.
• Design and deliver end-to-end solutions, from architecture through implementation and production support.
• Apply expertise in big data and real-time processing technologies, including Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, and NoSQL data stores like Redis.
• Engineer data pipelines and feature stores to power machine learning models and real-time scoring.
• Define and implement data and AI engineering best practices, ensuring solutions are scalable, resilient, and secure.
• Provide technical thought leadership across modern data, AI, and analytics platforms.
• Collaborate with onshore and offshore teams across engineering, data science, and product functions.
• Function as a senior individual contributor while also leading teams or workstreams at the program level.
• Act as a trusted technical advisor, translating business needs into data-driven and AI-powered solutions.

Required Qualifications

• Proven experience delivering complex, enterprise-scale data and analytics platforms.
• Hands-on expertise with distributed data processing and streaming architectures (Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, Spark Streaming).
• Experience supporting machine learning and AI workloads, such as feature engineering or real-time inference.
• Experience with NoSQL and low-latency data stores (e.g., Redis).
• Demonstrated ability to lead solution design and delivery across multiple teams.
• Collaboration and communication skills, with experience working across geographically distributed teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with agentic or autonomous processing patterns is highly desirable.
• Experience with additional real-time streaming technologies like Flink or Storm.
• Familiarity with Cloud Technologies such as Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Working knowledge of machine learning algorithms, statistical analysis, and programming languages (Python or R).
• Proficiency in Data Integration and Data Security within Big Data ecosystems, including knowledge of Kerberos.
• Command of Visual Analytics Tools, with a focus on Tableau.

Compensation & Benefits

The pay rate for this position is between $60.00 and $65.06 per hour.

We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.

Apex uses a virtual recruiter as part of the application process. Click for more details.

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Apex Systems is a world-class IT services company that serves thousands of clients across the globe. When you join Apex, you become part of a team that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. We offer quality career resources, training, certifications, development opportunities, and a comprehensive benefits package. Our commitment to excellence is reflected in many awards, including ClearlyRated's Best of Staffing in Talent Satisfaction in the United States and Great Place to Work in the United Kingdom and Mexico. Apex uses a virtual recruiter as part of the application process. Click for more details.

Apex Benefits Overview: Apex offers a range of supplemental benefits, including medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and other insurance plans that offer an optional layer of financial protection. We offer an ESPP (employee stock purchase program) and a 401K program which allows you to contribute typically within 30 days of starting, with a company match after 12 months of tenure. Apex also offers a HSA (Health Savings Account on the HDHP plan), a SupportLinc Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with up to 8 free counseling sessions, a corporate discount savings program and other discounts. In terms of professional development, Apex hosts an on-demand training program, provides access to certification prep and a library of technical and leadership courses/books/seminars once you have 6+ months of tenure, and certification discounts and other perks to associations that include CompTIA and IIBA. Apex has a dedicated customer service team for our Consultants that can address questions around benefits and other resources, as well as a certified Career Coach. You can access a full list of our benefits, programs, support teams and resources within our 'Welcome Packet' as well, which an Apex team member can provide.