# Vertex Pharmaceuticals - Senior Principal AI Engineer

- JD title: Senior Principal AI Engineer
- JD Company: Vertex Pharmaceuticals
- JD url: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4447167829
- JD Posting date and time: Estimated 2026-08-05 08:11 AM EDT; derived from LinkedIn public value '1 week ago' at original capture time 2026-08-12 08:11 AM EDT
- Number of applicants if available: 25 applicants
- Date and time the resume was generated: 2026-08-12 11:40 AM EDT
- Elapsed time between JD Posting date and time vs the resume generation time: 7 days, 3 hours, 29 minutes
- JD level: Individual contributor / senior technical leadership role. The JD emphasizes hands-on enterprise AI platform architecture, implementation, standards, mentoring, and cross-functional influence, without direct reports, hiring, performance management, or people-team ownership.
- Compensation: $188,000 - $282,000 base salary range; annual bonus and annual equity eligibility stated in JD text.
- Count and percent of matching Significant keywords in JD vs in resume: 21 JD / 17 resume (81.0%)
- Fit Notes / caveats: Boston, MA senior principal AI engineering role. Public LinkedIn capture lists 25 applicants; travel and full work-model cadence are not disclosed.
- JD text: See captured JD below.

## Captured JD

Job Description

 Vertex is seeking a Senior Principal AI Engineer to define and build the foundational enterprise AI platform that powers intelligent applications across the enterprise. This role will lead the design and implementation of scalable, secure, and reusable capabilities for agentic AI, with a strong focus on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), orchestration frameworks, evaluation systems, and platform architecture.

In addition to building out the core platform, this engineer will own the vision and day-to-day operations of a centralized AI Gateway / Control Plane / Control Tower that enables agent monitoring, observability, policy enforcement, governance, and operational controls across AI solutions at Vertex. This is a highly strategic and hands-on role for an experienced AI engineer who is excited to shape enterprise AI architecture, standards, and long-term technical direction.

 Key Responsibilities

 Agentic AI platform: the shared architecture, services, and reusable capabilities that make it faster and safer to build AI-powered applications across Vertex 
 AI Control Tower operations: standing up and running the centralized control plane for agent monitoring, observability, telemetry, policy enforcement, guardrails, usage analytics, and auditability 
 Own the strategy, architecture, implementation, and day-to-day operation of the centralized AI Gateway / Control Tower as the enterprise control point for model access, routing, governance, cost management, and operational oversight 
 Intelligent model routing, provider abstraction, fallback, failover, rate limiting, and workload optimization across approved models 
 AI FinOps, including token and consumption visibility, budgeting, chargeback/showback, cost allocation, forecasting, and model-cost optimization 
 Centralized guardrails for content safety, prompt-injection defense, data-loss prevention, sensitive-data handling, and responsible AI policy enforcement 
 Identity, access, security, privacy, regulatory compliance, and lifecycle governance controls for models, agents, tools, and AI interactions 
 End-to-end observability, telemetry, quality monitoring, latency and reliability metrics, incident response, and operational health management 
 Usage analytics, immutable audit trails, policy evidence, risk reporting, and executive-level transparency across the enterprise AI estate 
 Model onboarding, approval, versioning, deprecation, resiliency, capacity management, and third-party provider governance 
 Retrieval and knowledge systems: RAG pipelines, vector search, document retrieval, and the grounding patterns that make enterprise content usable by agents 
 Agent lifecycle and quality: deployment, versioning, evaluation frameworks, reliability measurement, and continuous improvement of agents in production 
 Standards and technical leadership: platform APIs, service contracts, architecture patterns, and the engineering practices other teams build against 
 Define the technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for Vertex’s enterprise agentic AI platform 
 Design and build reusable platform services that accelerate development of safe, reliable, and scalable AI-powered applications 
 Lead architecture and implementation for RAG pipelines, knowledge retrieval systems, prompt workflows, tool use, and agent orchestration 
 Establish core frameworks for agent lifecycle management, including deployment, monitoring, observability, evaluation, and continuous improvement 
 Develop scalable infrastructure patterns for enterprise AI workloads, including model integration, data access, and orchestration services 
 Partner closely with product, engineering, data, security, and UX teams to deliver common AI platform capabilities that support multiple use cases across Vertex 
 Establish best practices for AI reliability, evaluation, safety, and performance measurement 
 Drive technical standards for platform APIs, service contracts, architecture patterns, and reusable components 
 Evaluate emerging technologies, frameworks, and vendors in the AI/agentic ecosystem and make strategic recommendations 
 Mentor engineers and influence cross-functional technical teams through architectural leadership and hands-on guidance 
 Ensure platform solutions align with enterprise requirements for scalability, resilience, security, and maintainability 
 Contribute to Vertex’s long-term AI strategy by identifying opportunities to expand platform capabilities and increase enterprise adoption 

 Required Qualifications

 Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related technical field; or equivalent combination of education and experience 
 10+ years of experience designing and building enterprise-grade AI/ML platforms and distributed systems 
 Deep expertise in agentic AI architectures, LLM-based applications, and platform engineering 
 Proven experience with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems, vector search, document retrieval, and knowledge integration patterns 
 Strong experience with AI orchestration frameworks, workflow engines, and multi-step agent execution patterns 
 Demonstrated experience designing centralized operational platforms for monitoring, governance, observability, and control 
 Demonstrated experience using AI-assisted software development and autonomous coding agents to design, generate, test, review, debug, optimize, and refactor code across complex enterprise systems. 
 Deep understanding of AI-native software engineering practices and experience establishing standards, governance, and best practices for the responsible use of AI coding assistants and software engineering agents across engineering teams 
 Experience defining architecture, standards, and reusable services for large-scale enterprise environments 
 Strong understanding of AI system evaluation, quality measurement, and performance optimization 
 Experience partnering with cross-functional stakeholders and influencing technical direction across teams 
 Excellent communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills 
 Ability to balance strategic architecture leadership with hands-on technical execution 

 Technical Skills Required

 Agentic AI platform architecture 
 Large Language Models (LLMs) 
 Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) 
 AI orchestration and workflow design 
 Agent monitoring and observability 
 AI governance, policies, and controls 
 AI FinOps, token economics, budgeting, cost allocation, consumption forecasting, and model-cost optimization 
 AI Gateway / Control Tower architecture, including model routing, provider abstraction, fallback, rate limiting, and policy enforcement 
 Evaluation frameworks for AI systems 
 Platform engineering and reusable service design 
 Distributed systems architecture 
 API and service design 
 Knowledge retrieval systems 
 Telemetry, logging, and operational analytics 
 Scalability, reliability, and performance engineering 
 Security and enterprise controls for AI platforms 

 Preferred Skills

 Experience building enterprise AI platforms in regulated or highly governed environments 
 Familiarity with human-in-the-loop workflows and responsible AI practices 
 Experience implementing policy engines, guardrails, and audit frameworks for AI applications 
 Knowledge of ML infrastructure, model serving, and production AI operations 
 Experience with cloud-native architectures and modern DevOps/MLOps practices 
 Exposure to user experience considerations for AI-powered applications and intelligent systems 
 Ability to translate complex technical capabilities into scalable enterprise adoption strategies 
 Experience leading technical teams through platform transformation initiatives 

 Pay Range

 $188,000 - $282,000

 Disclosure Statement

 The range provided is based on what we believe is a reasonable estimate for the base salary pay range for this job at the time of posting. This role is eligible for an annual bonus and annual equity awards. Some roles may also be eligible for overtime pay, in accordance with federal and state requirements. Actual base salary pay will be based on a number of factors, including skills, competencies, experience, and other job-related factors permitted by law.

At Vertex, our Total Rewards offerings also include inclusive market-leading benefits to meet our employees wherever they are in their career, financial, family and wellbeing journey while providing flexibility and resources to support their growth and aspirations. From medical, dental and vision benefits to generous paid time off (including a week-long company shutdown in the Summer and the Winter), educational assistance programs including student loan repayment, a generous commuting subsidy, matching charitable donations, 401(k) and so much more.

 Company Information

 Vertex is a global biotechnology company that invests in scientific innovation.

Vertex is committed to equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination for all employees and qualified applicants without regard to a person's race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, or any characteristic protected under applicable law. Vertex is an E-Verify Employer in the United States. Vertex will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities, in accordance with applicable law.

Any applicant requiring an accommodation in connection with the hiring process and/or to perform the essential functions of the position for which the applicant has applied should make a request to the recruiter or hiring manager, or contact Talent Acquisition at ApplicationAssistance@vrtx.com

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 Seniority level

 Mid-Senior level

 Employment type

 Full-time

 Job function

 Engineering and Information Technology

 Industries

 Biotechnology Research

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