Principal AI Platform Engineer, Applied AI

Principal AI Platform Engineer, Applied AI

Full-Time 90000 - 110000 £ / year (est.) Remote
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At a Glance

  • Tasks: Lead the expansion of our AI platform, designing and building intelligent systems for real-time engagement.
  • Company: Join Snowplow, a leader in real-time customer data analytics with a collaborative culture.
  • Benefits: Enjoy competitive salary, equity stake, flexible working, generous PTO, and private medical insurance.
  • Other info: Work in a dynamic environment with opportunities for growth and innovation.
  • Why this job: Make a real impact by shaping the future of AI-driven customer engagement.
  • Qualifications: Experience in production software, LLM systems, and data platforms is essential.

The predicted salary is between 90000 - 110000 £ per year.

About Snowplow

Snowplow is the real-time customer context layer that collects, validates, enriches, and delivers behavioral data for advanced analytics, ML, and AI agent decisioning.

Snowplow's event tracking is leveraged across 2M+ websites and applications globally, processing over one trillion events per month.

More than 250 companies, including Experian, Auto Trader, Strava, Condé Nast, and Hello Fresh, rely on Snowplow to build a well-governed, first‑party data foundation that powers their customer‑facing AI agents, in‑session personalization and recommendations, and real‑time analytics.

This Opportunity

Snowplow is rebuilding how the company runs its own work, and the Applied AI team owns Firn, the single data and AI platform the whole company runs on.

Firn already gives people and agents the same governed tools over our Snowflake warehouse through an MCP gateway, routes every model call through one LLM gateway with tracing, runs agentic workflows on a factory framework with a ledger that records every run, and holds the skills catalog the company draws on.

Most of the company uses it every day.

The platform is at its beginning, and the next stage is to expand it until it holds the company’s commercial intelligence and lets agents act on it safely.

You are the principal engineer who leads that expansion.

The first engagement is Go-to-Market, full time for about six months.

Our buyers research with AI agents now, and reaching them means using our own data and AI to decide which accounts and people to engage, with what, and learning from every experiment.

The GTM teams have built a lot: daily account and engagement scoring, signal feeds from Apollo, Vector and reo. dev, an always‑on outbound engine, a paid‑media loop, a curated GTM knowledge base, and the integrations between them.

Much of it was built by operational teams to get results fast, and it did.

You design how those services come onto Firn, unify and modernize them, build the agents and tools and learning loops on top, and make the whole thing production grade.

This is a principal role.

You report to the Senior Director of Applied AI, who still ships code, and work as a peer.

Marketing, Sales, Account Management and Partnerships are the platform’s customers and set their own priorities.

You decide how it gets built and whether it is sound.

Once the GTM services run without you, they stay yours as their owner and most of your time goes to what Snowplow needs next.

  • What you will own
  • The GTM intelligence engine on Firn.

The data and AI that decide who we engage and with what, and that learn from the outcome of every action.

You design it with our data engineers as a set of platform services with several internal customers, and you bring the GTM services that exist today onto the same foundation.

  • Agents and tools.

The agents that run GTM work and the tools people and other agents call, built on the factory framework with review steps and evaluations as the standard shape, so every agent on the platform can be trusted and inspected the same way.

  • Platform architecture.

The MCP gateway, LLM gateway, tracing, factory framework and ledger, and how they grow to hold more of the company’s work.

You decide what is built, what is bought, and what is retired.

  • Production grade.

Version control, CI, alerting and recovery, cost visibility, documentation, and handover for every service on the platform, including the ones that arrive from operational teams.

You set the bar and you make it visible to the teams that depend on it.

  • Logic as code.

Rules that today live inside individual tools move into versioned code on the platform, where agents can read them and engineers can test them, and the tools become endpoints the platform drives.

  • Learning loops.

Every action the platform takes is recorded and tied to its outcome, so people and agents can see what worked and the next action is better.

Metric definitions sit with our data engineers; the instrumentation that applies them is yours.

  • Eval and tracing infrastructure. The harness the embedded and forward deployed engineers use to prove their agents work. You own the tooling; they own the checks.
  • The technical bar and the roadmap. You set the engineering bar for the Applied AI team and own the platform roadmap, and you keep the long view of the platform at all times.
  • We would love to hear from you if you have
  • Years of production software behind you.

You have designed, shipped and run systems other teams depend on, in Python or Type Script, with SQL, CI/CD and cloud infrastructure as everyday tools.

This is a principal role and the bar is set there.

  • Built LLM systems that real work runs on.

Agents with tools, MCP servers, gateways, tracing and evaluation, and the failure modes that come with them.

You can say what broke in production and what you changed.

  • Platform instincts.

You have built systems other people depend on, whether internal teams or customers, through interfaces you designed, and you know the difference between a platform and a pile of integrations.

  • Data platform fluency. Snowflake or an equivalent warehouse, dbt, data contracts, and the pipelines that move warehouse data into Saa S tools and back.
  • Operational discipline. Alerting, recovery, runbooks and cost tracking are things you add before anyone asks, and you have run systems where that discipline mattered.
  • Judgment about where an agent belongs.

You can tell which decisions should be deterministic code, which an agent can make, and which should stay with a person, and you can explain the reasoning to a non‑engineer.

  • An AI‑native way of working you can show us. A workflow, agent or tool you built and still use. Expect to demonstrate it during the interview process.
  • Comfort with internal customers who are not engineers.

You can sit with a growth director, a seller or a marketer, take a requirement, and hold the line on how it gets built.

No sales or marketing background is needed.

  • Technical direction without a title. You have set direction for a platform that other engineers followed because the design was right, not because they reported to you.
  • How we hire for this role

The interview process includes a working session where you walk us through how you work with AI on a real task, using your own setup, and a design conversation on a system we run today.

We work this way ourselves, and you are welcome to use AI when applying.

  • What you get in return for being awesome
  • Meaningful equity stake
  • Competitive Base Salary
  • Flexible working
  • Generous PTO
  • Private Medical Insurance
  • Company Pension
  • Mac Book and home office equipment allowance
  • Enhanced Family leave

Principal AI Platform Engineer, Applied AI employer: Snowplow

Snowplow is an exceptional employer that fosters a dynamic and innovative work culture, perfect for those looking to kickstart their career in operations. With a strong emphasis on employee growth, you will have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience across various functions while being supported in pursuing professional qualifications. Located in a vibrant WeWork space, Snowplow offers flexible working arrangements, generous PTO, and a meaningful equity stake, making it an attractive place for individuals eager to make a significant impact in a fast-paced environment.

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Contact Details:

Snowplow Recruitment Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫

We think this is how you could land Principal AI Platform Engineer, Applied AI

✨Join Local Tech Meetups

Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Snowplow or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!

✨Contribute to Open Source Projects

Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Snowplow.

✨Tap into Online Developer Communities

Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Snowplow.

✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles

Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Snowplow that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!

We think you need these skills to ace Principal AI Platform Engineer, Applied AI

Python
TypeScript
SQL
CI/CD
Cloud Infrastructure
LLM Systems Design
Platform Architecture

Some tips for your application 🫡

Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.

Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Snowplow.

Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Snowplow and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!

Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!

How to prepare for a job interview at Snowplow

✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills

For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.

✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks

Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Snowplow uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.

✨Showcase Your Projects

Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.

✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions

While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.