Principal Systems Engineer (C++) - AI Infrastructure
About this role
About the Role What if your deep C++ expertise could directly shape the infrastructure powering the world's most advanced AI systems? We're looking for a Principal Systems Engineer to design and build the high-performance data pipelines, annotation tooling, and evaluation infrastructure that leading AI labs depend on to train and improve next-generation models. This is a fully remote, flexible contract role for senior engineers who want to work on real production systems with genuine impact — not toy projects. - Organization: Alignerr - Type: Hourly Contract - Location: Remote - Commitment: 20–40 hours/week What You'll Do - Design, build, and optimize high-performance C++ systems that power AI data pipelines and evaluation workflows - Develop full-stack tooling and backend services for large-scale data annotation, validation, and quality control - Harden reliability, performance, and memory safety across production C++ codebases - Collaborate with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training and evaluation at scale - Identify bottlenecks and edge cases across data and system behavior, then implement robust, scalable fixes - Participate in synchronous design reviews to iterate on architecture and implementation decisions Who You Are - Native or fluent English speaker with clear written and verbal communication skills - Experienced full-stack developer with a strong systems programming background - 5+ years of professional experience writing production-grade C++ for large-scale systems - Deep knowledge of build system architecture and package management strategies - Proven experience designing reliable systems with rigorous error handling and memory safety (sanitizers, ASAN, TSAN, etc.) - Able to commit 20–40 hours per week with consistency Nice to Have - Prior experience with data annotation, data quality pipelines, or evaluation frameworks - Familiarity with AI/ML workflows, model training infrastructure, or benchmarking systems - Experience with distributed systems or developer tooling at scale Why Join Us - Work directly with leading AI labs on production systems that matter - Fully remote and flexible — work when and where it suits you - Freelance autonomy with the structure of meaningful, high-impact engineering work - Collaborate with world-class data, research, and engineering teams pushing the frontier of AI - Potential for ongoing work and contract extension as new projects launch
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