Principal AI Engineer
Summary
Senior hands-on AI platform engineer in Singapore within a group's IT function: operates and governs a supplier-provided AI agent platform, directs supplier engineers, sets engineering standards for reusable agent components, and ensures reliability, security and portability of LLM-powered agents. Core tech: AI agents/LLMs, cloud platforms (Azure/AWS), MCP/A2A integrations.
The Company
Our client is strengthening its Group IT capabilities through the development and operation of an AI agent platform. The Group uses a supplier-provided platform while retaining ownership of the AI agents, reusable building blocks, integrations and configurations it develops.
They are building its AI engineering capabilities to ensure that its AI platform is reliable, secure, scalable and adaptable, with the technical expertise to direct suppliers effectively and maintain control over its own technology.
The Role
The Principal AI Engineer is a senior, hands-on engineering role within Group IT —AI Agents, Engineering & Enablement, reporting to the Head of AI. Based in Singapore, this role serves as group's most senior AI platform engineer, providing technical leadership without direct people-management responsibilities.
You will be responsible for the day-to-day operation, reliability and technical governance of AI agent platform. Working closely with the platform supplier, internal IT and security teams, and business users, you will ensure that the platform performs reliably and that AI agents are developed and operated according to established engineering standards.
- Platform Operations and Reliability: Manage platform settings, environments and integrations; test and approve supplier updates before deployment; and lead technical recovery when issues arise.
- Supplier Technical Direction: Direct the supplier's engineers, review the quality of their work, assess technical recommendations and ensure issues are resolved inline with agreed service levels.
- Engineering Standards and Reusable Components: Establish engineering standards and design patterns for AI agents and integrations, maintain a catalogue of reusable building blocks, and provide technical assessments before agents proceed to go-live.
- Monitoring and Performance: Monitor live agents through platform logs, report breaches to the assurance lead and relevant business owners, and track platform availability, costs, reuse and human supervision requirements.
- Portability and Technical Control: Ensure agents, configurations, data and reusable components remain documented, exportable and under group's control, reducing reliance on a single platform supplier.
- Security and Access Management: Work with the cloud and identity team to manage agent permissions and credentials, while supporting the separate China platform setup.
The Requirements
To succeed in this role, you should be an experienced software or platform engineer with strong hands-on expertise in AI agents, cloud platforms and production engineering.
- Extensive Engineering Experience: 10–12 years of experience in software or platform engineering, including at least three years operating live cloud platforms.
- AI Agent Expertise: Practical experience building and operating AI agents or applications powered by large language models in live environments.
- Agent Integration Knowledge: Familiarity with standards and protocols for connecting agents to tools and to one another, such as MCP and A2A.
- Platform Reliability and Release Management: Strong skills in monitoring, logging, testing, troubleshooting and managing software releases.
- Technical and Supplier Leadership: Experience directing external engineers, evaluating technical deliverables and challenging supplier recommendations when necessary.
- Security and Systems Integration: Knowledge of secure authentication, permissions, credentials, audit trails and integrations with business systems such as Oracle finance systems.
- Communication and Collaboration: Excellent written and spoken English, with the ability to explain complex technical issues clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
- Education and Qualifications: A bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering or a related discipline. Professional-level cloud certifications, such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services, are advantageous, as are AI engineering or security certifications.
The Next Step
Interested candidates may submit their resumes via this portal or email their CVs (in Word format) to evan.lim@chaptrconsulting.com.
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