Principal Systems Engineer (C++) - AI Infrastructure
Principal Systems Engineer (C++) — AI Infrastructure About The Role What if your systems engineering expertise could directly shape the infrastructure powering the world's most advanced AI models? We're looking for a Principal C++ Systems Engineer to design and build high-performance data pipelines, annotation tooling, and evaluation infrastructure used by leading AI research labs. This is a fully remote, flexible contract role for an experienced engineer who thrives on solving hard problems at scale — someone who cares deeply about performance, reliability, and clean systems design. 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 AI data pipelines and evaluation workflows Develop full-stack tooling and backend services for large-scale data annotation, validation, and quality control Improve reliability, performance, and memory safety across production C++ codebases Collaborate closely with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training and evaluation workflows Identify bottlenecks and edge cases in system behavior, then implement scalable, maintainable solutions 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 Full-stack developer with a strong systems programming background 5+ years of professional experience writing production-grade C++ for large-scale systems Advanced knowledge of build system architecture and package management strategies Experienced designing reliable systems with rigorous error handling and memory sanitizers Self-directed and capable of committing 20–40 hours per week in a remote contract environment
Nice to Have
Prior experience with data annotation, data quality pipelines, or evaluation systems Familiarity with AI/ML workflows, model training, or benchmarking infrastructure Experience with distributed systems or developer tooling Background working alongside research or applied ML teams
Why Join Us
Work on real production systems at the frontier of AI — not toy projects Collaborate with top-tier AI labs and researchers on genuinely high-impact work Fully remote and flexible — structure your hours around your life Freelance autonomy with the depth and consistency of meaningful, ongoing technical work Potential for contract extension and expanded scope as projects evolve