Principal Systems Engineer (C++) - AI Infrastructure

Principal Systems Engineer (C++) — AI Infrastructure

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 seasoned C++ Systems Engineer to design and build high-performance pipelines, annotation tooling, and evaluation infrastructure used by leading AI labs at the frontier of model development.

This is a fully remote, flexible contract role for engineers who thrive on complex systems problems and want their work to matter at scale.

• Organization: Alignerr
• Type: Hourly Contract
• Location: Remote
• Commitment: 20–40 hours/week

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and optimize high-performance C++ systems supporting large-scale AI data pipelines and evaluation workflows
• Develop full-stack tooling and backend services for data annotation, validation, and quality control at scale
• Improve reliability, performance, and safety across existing production C++ codebases
• Identify bottlenecks and edge cases in data and system behavior, and implement robust, scalable solutions
• Collaborate with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training and evaluation workflows
• 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
• 5+ years of professional experience writing production C++ for large-scale systems
• Strong full-stack development background with deep systems programming expertise
• Advanced knowledge of build system architecture and package management strategies
• Experienced designing reliable, production-grade systems with rigorous error handling
• Proficient with memory sanitizers and tooling to ensure memory safety
• Able to commit 20–40 hours per week consistently

Nice to Have

• Prior experience with data annotation, data quality, or evaluation systems
• Familiarity with AI/ML workflows, model training, or benchmarking pipelines
• Experience with distributed systems design or developer tooling

Why Join Us

• Work on cutting-edge AI infrastructure alongside leading research labs at the frontier of AI
• Fully remote and flexible — work when and where it suits you
• Freelance autonomy with the structure of meaningful, high-impact engineering work
• Contribute directly to systems that shape how next-generation AI models are built and evaluated
• Potential for ongoing work and contract extension as new projects launch