Reports to:
Chief Technology OfficerThe Opportunity
Every engineering organisation is adopting AI copilots. That is table stakes. What separates the best from the rest is whether AI is a tool on a developer's laptop or a systematic participant in how the organisation delivers software.
At Bullish, we have chosen the latter. Our north star is a fully autonomous development workflow where engineers focus on what matters most: specifications, testing harnesses, and validation — while AI agents handle the predictable work. The foundational systems are already in production. We need someone to lead this forward.
As Principal Engineer, you will be the technical authority for AI and agentic engineering across Bullish. You will shape the architecture, build the systems, and drive the organisational shift from AI-assisted to AI-native software delivery.
The Role
This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will:
Build the agent infrastructure that lets AI agents discover each other, communicate, and coordinate — so any team can deploy an agent and it joins the ecosystem
Evolve our autonomous coding pipeline — task in, pull request out, with deterministic multi-agent execution, full cost control, and human review before merge
Make engineering standards executable — encoding conventions as AI behaviours that activate in developer workflows, not documents pinned to a wiki
Transform the delivery pipeline — auditing every manual gate and either automating it, replacing it with an agent, or justifying its retention as a deliberate human decision point
Own AI infrastructure end to end — model routing, LLM proxy, cost attribution, evaluation frameworks, and observability for production AI systems
What You’ll Do
Set the technical direction for AI and agentic systems across the engineering organisation
Design and build production systems: agent orchestration, autonomous coding pipelines, LLMOps infrastructure
Stay hands-on: write code, review PRs, debug production issues, and set the technical bar
Evaluate new models, frameworks, and techniques as the landscape evolves — and bring what works into the organisation
Establish metrics and observability for agent output quality, cost, and throughput
Recruit and mentor engineers as the function grows, while remaining a primary contributor yourself
Partner with the AI Enablement team to provide the technical foundation for business team AI adoption
What You’ll Bring
8+ years of engineering experience, including significant recent work with LLM and agent systems
Hands-on experience building with LLM APIs (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google) and agent frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar)
Direct experience designing and building agentic workflows or multi-agent systems — not just using copilots, but building the infrastructure behind them
Mastery of backend development, distributed systems, and Python
Strong LLMOps skills: CI/CD for AI systems, production observability, cost attribution, and spend control
Experience deploying AI coding agents or developer tools to engineering teams
Ability to influence technical direction across an organisation and build consensus for architectural decisions
Nice to Haves
Experience in digital assets, blockchain, or traditional financial services
Experience fine-tuning and deploying open-source LLMs in production
Experience with data privacy and security compliance in a regulated environment
Bullish US LLC & CoinDesk Inc. are committed to offering competitive compensation and benefits. The anticipated base salary for this position is $200,000 - $325,000 + discretionary annual target bonus + performance incentives/benefits. Offered salary will be reflective of job related knowledge, skills and commensurate experience.
Bullish is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are fast evolving and striving towards being a globally-diverse community. With integrity at our core, our success is driven by a talented team of individuals and the different perspectives they are encouraged to bring to work every day.
Skills Required
- 8+ years of engineering experience
- Significant recent work with LLM and agent systems
- Hands-on experience building with LLM APIs
- Direct experience designing and building agentic workflows or multi-agent systems
- Mastery of backend development and distributed systems
- Strong LLMOps skills
- Ability to influence technical direction
Bullish Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Bullish and has not been reviewed or approved by Bullish.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Job postings disclose clear base pay bands and incentives for senior roles, and feedback suggests these ranges are competitive for the sector. This visibility signals clarity for leadership-level candidates evaluating offers.
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Healthcare Strength — U.S. operations provide health and vision insurance through a major carrier, indicating solid core medical coverage. Feedback suggests the medical offering aligns with market expectations.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Perks such as free daily meals, UberEats allowances on in-office days, stocked fridges, catered lunches, rooftop events, and a home‑office stipend support everyday wellbeing. The company also emphasizes a flexible working environment and regular team activities.
Bullish Insights
What We Do
Bullish is an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish services are regulated in the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Gibraltar. These include: Bullish Exchange – a regulated and institutionally focused digital assets spot and derivatives exchange, integrating a high-performance central limit order book matching engine with automated market making to provide deep and predictable liquidity. CoinDesk Indices – a collection of tradable proprietary and single-asset benchmarks and indices that track the performance of digital assets for global institutions in the digital assets and traditional finance industries. CoinDesk Data - a broad suite of digital assets market data and analytics, providing real-time insights into prices, trends, and market dynamics. CoinDesk Insights – a digital asset media and events provider and operator of Coindesk.com, a digital media platform that covers news and insights about digital assets, the underlying markets, policy, and blockchain technology. For more information, please visit bullish.com and follow LinkedIn and X.
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