Principal Engineer, AI Platform

Posted 8 Hours Ago
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Cary, NC, USA
In-Office
Expert/Leader
Gaming • Metaverse
The Role
Leads the architecture and development of scalable AI-powered developer platforms, including code review systems, cloud agent hosting, knowledge bases, and developer experience tools. Provides technical vision, establishes AI agent and framework standards, implements security and governance controls, defines success metrics, partners with organizational leaders, and mentors software engineers. The role combines hands-on engineering with principal-level technical leadership across APIs, services, web and desktop tools, CLI applications, and build integrations.
Summary Generated by Built In
WHAT MAKES US EPIC?

At the core of Epic’s success are talented, passionate people. Epic prides itself on creating a collaborative, welcoming, and creative environment. Whether it’s building award-winning games or crafting engine technology that enables others to make visually stunning interactive experiences, we’re always innovating.

Being Epic means being a part of a team that continually strives to do right by our community and users. We’re constantly innovating to raise the bar of engine and game development.

ONLINE INFRASTRUCTUREWhat We Do

We enable Epic’s online services teams to build, deploy, and manage services that are used by more than half a billion players around the world. Our mission is to provide world class tools and platforms to improve the experience of our developers and make it easier, faster, and safer to build, operate, and scale their applications. We operate at massive scale as one of the largest cloud computing users in the world.

What You'll Do

As Technical Lead / Principal Engineer on the AI Engineering team, you'll provide technical leadership and strategic vision for the AI-powered platforms, tools and services that accelerate development velocity and productivity across Epic. You'll guide a team of engineers in building high-impact products like unified AI code review systems, Cloud agent hosting, centralized AI knowledge base and developer experience tools that serve thousands of folks across the company.

This role sits at the intersection of AI innovation, practical engineering, and technical leadership. You'll set the technical direction for tools that developers across Epic use every day, establish best practices for AI-powered development tooling, mentor engineers, and shape how thousands of engineers write, review, and ship code. On top of that you'll be hands-on building complex aspects of the systems and working heavily with AI agents to implement, test, release, and operate these critical platforms.

In this role, you will
  • Provide technical leadership and architectural vision for production-grade AI developer tools used by thousands of engineers across Epic's major codebases (Unreal Engine, Fortnite, and more)
  • Drive architectural decisions for scalable, maintainable developer-facing tools across multiple modalities: CLI and desktop tools, web apps, build process integrations, services, and APIs
  • Pioneer and establish patterns for modern AI frameworks and agent architectures, setting standards for the broader team
  • Partner with leadership and high-value teams to identify strategic opportunities and design/build/validate new platforms
  • Design and implement security, governance, and compliance protocols for AI platforms, including secret management, workload identity, and runtime isolation policies
  • Define measurement strategies and success metrics to track impact and continuously improve tool effectiveness
  • Mentor and grow a team of software engineers, conducting architecture reviews and raising the bar for technical excellence
What we're looking for
  • B.S. in Computer Science or equivalent experience with 10+ years building production software systems
  • Track record of providing technical leadership for complex software projects from conception to delivery at scale
  • Proven experience in "zero-to-one" platform ownership: leading the technical design, architectural strategy, and initial build-out of new platforms before they are fully staffed and scaled
  • Expert-level experience with REST APIs, microservices, and distributed systems
  • Experience operating and orchestrating scalable services on Kubernetes, including managing container lifecycle and security configurations
  • Experience with and high level of interest in using and building AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot)
  • Proven ability to turn ambiguous organizational problems into concrete technical strategies and drive them to completion
  • Bonus qualifications
    • Game development experience specifically in Unreal 
    • Experience leading developer tools or internal platform teams
    • Passion and interest in cutting-edge AI engineering workflows 
    • Expert understanding of agent architectures and orchestration frameworks
    • Significant contributions to open-source AI tooling projects
    • Extensive experience with large monorepo codebases
    • Prior experience in engineering leadership roles
EPIC JOB + EPIC BENEFITS = EPIC LIFE

Our intent is to cover all things that are medically necessary and improve the quality of life. We pay 100% of the premiums for both you and your dependents. Our coverage includes Medical, Dental, a Vision HRA, Long Term Disability, Life Insurance & a 401k with competitive match. We also offer a robust mental well-being program through Modern Health, which provides free therapy and coaching for employees & dependents. Throughout the year we celebrate our employees with events and company-wide paid breaks. We offer unlimited PTO and sick time and recognize individuals for 7 years of employment with a paid sabbatical.

ABOUT US

Epic Games​ ​is a leading interactive entertainment company. For over 30 years we've been making award-winning games and engine technology that empowers others to make visually stunning games and 3D content that bring environments to life like never before. Epic's award-winning Unreal Engine technology not only provides game developers the ability to build high-fidelity, interactive experiences for PC, console, mobile, and VR, it is also a tool being embraced by content creators across a variety of industries such as media and entertainment, automotive, and architectural design. As we continue to build our Engine technology and develop remarkable games, we strive to build teams of world-class talent.

Like what you hear? Come be a part of something Epic!

Epic Games deeply values diverse teams and an inclusive work culture, and we are proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. Learn more about our Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Policy here.

Note to Recruitment Agencies: Epic does not accept any unsolicited resumes or approaches from any unauthorized third party (including recruitment or placement agencies) (i.e., a third party with whom we do not have a negotiated and validly executed agreement). We will not pay any fees to any unauthorized third party. Further details on these matters can be found here.

Skills Required

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience
  • 10+ years of experience building production software systems
  • Technical leadership experience delivering complex software projects at scale
  • Experience owning and building new platforms from conception through initial development and scaling
  • Expert experience with REST APIs, microservices, and distributed systems
  • Experience operating and orchestrating scalable services on Kubernetes
  • Experience managing container lifecycles and security configurations
  • Experience using or building AI-assisted development tools
  • Ability to translate ambiguous organizational problems into technical strategies and deliver results
  • Unreal Engine game development experience
  • Experience leading developer tools or internal platform teams
  • Expert understanding of agent architectures and orchestration frameworks
  • Contributions to open-source AI tooling projects
  • Extensive experience with large monorepo codebases
  • Prior engineering leadership experience

Epic Games Compensation & Benefits Highlights

The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Epic Games and has not been reviewed or approved by Epic Games.

  • Healthcare Strength Health coverage is described as comprehensive—often free—and includes medical, dental, vision, and access to therapy sessions. Feedback suggests these offerings are a standout element of the overall package.
  • Equity Value & Accessibility Stock options and sizable bonuses are highlighted as meaningful parts of total compensation, with some describing pay as unmatched. Feedback suggests equity and incentives materially enhance perceived compensation.
  • Leave & Time Off Breadth Generous time off, paid holidays, and sabbaticals are referenced alongside improvements in work-life balance. Feedback suggests paid leave breadth helps offset demanding periods.

Epic Games Insights

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The Company
HQ: Cary, NC
5,500 Employees
Year Founded: 1991

What We Do

Founded in 1991, Epic Games is an American company founded by CEO Tim Sweeney. The company is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, and has more than 50 offices worldwide. Today Epic is a leading interactive entertainment company and provider of 3D engine technology. Epic operates one of the world’s largest games, Fortnite, and Epic has over 600 million accounts with over 5 billion friend connections across Fortnite, Fall Guys, Rocket League, and the Epic Games Store. Epic also develops Unreal Engine, which powers the world’s leading games and is also adopted across industries such as film and television, architecture, automotive, manufacturing, and simulation. Through Unreal Engine, Epic Games Store, and Epic Online Services, Epic provides an end-to-end digital ecosystem for developers and creators to build, distribute, and operate games and other content.

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