About the role

Principal Engineer leading the design and reliability of financial data extraction platform at AlphaSense. Focusing on AI-driven processes and reducing human dependency in data handling.

Responsibilities

Own the architecture and evolution of our large-scale data extraction and normalization platform
Design systems that process hundreds of thousands of records across heterogeneous sources (PDF, HTML, APIs, XLS) with high reliability
Define and implement strategies to minimize human-in-the-loop validation through AI-based validation, confidence scoring, provenance tracking, and deterministic safeguards
Establish clear system contracts for correctness, traceability, and confidence (e.g., “where did this number come from?”)
Balance AI-driven approaches with procedural and rules-based systems where they improve reliability and explainability
Identify and remediate architectural and operational bottlenecks impacting scale, accuracy, and developer velocity
Act as the technical authority to block poor designs, redesign critical systems, and introduce new platforms or tooling when necessary
Partner with product and downstream consumers to define quality bars, SLAs, and success metrics
Serve as a technical escalation point for production issues, reliability failures, and systemic risks
Mentor senior engineers, shape technical culture, and raise expectations for system design and execution
Contribute to long-term technical strategy while remaining hands-on with critical implementations

15+ years of experience building and operating large-scale production systems
Proven experience designing data ingestion, extraction, or processing systems at scale
Deep expertise in one or more of:
Distributed systems
Data platforms and pipelines
AI/ML-powered extraction or classification systems
Platform or infrastructure engineering
Demonstrated ability to design trustworthy systems that combine probabilistic (AI) and deterministic approaches
Strong understanding of system reliability, observability, failure modes, and iterative hardening
Experience reducing operational or human overhead through better system design
Track record of technical leadership across teams without formal people management
Comfortable operating in ambiguity and driving clarity where none exists
Passion for using AI responsibly and effectively to deliver scalable, high-confidence systems.
Nice to Have:
Experience with document understanding, NLP, or financial data extraction
Experience building provenance, lineage, or confidence-scoring systems
Familiarity with cloud-native architectures and modern data stacks
Experience shaping or owning internal platforms used by multiple teams