As a technology leader that is rapidly on the move, HARMAN is filled with people who are focused on making life better. Innovation, inclusivity and teamwork are a part of our DNA. When you add that to the challenges we take on and solve together, you’ll discover that at HARMAN you can grow, make a difference and be proud of the work you do every day.
About the Role
As the Principal AI Engineer, you will act as the technical leader for AI solution design, implementation, and operationalization across Harman’s BI, AI, and Data ecosystem. Your primary focus will be defining how AI is applied at scale—ensuring solutions are robust, secure, explainable, testable, and production-ready.
You will lead the development of both prebuilt AI integrations and custom AI/ML solutions, while establishing enterprise standards for MLOps, model governance, and lifecycle management. You will ensure AI solutions are not isolated experiments, but fully integrated, scalable systems built on top of the data platform (Databricks).
What You Will Do
1. AI Strategy & Technical Leadership
- AI Engineering Leadership:
- Define best practices for AI solution design, deployment, and lifecycle management.
- Use Case Prioritization:
- Identify high-value AI opportunities and guide their technical execution.
- Standards & Governance:
- Establish standards for model development, validation, deployment, and monitoring.
2. AI Solution Architecture & Development
- Define architectural patterns for:
- Batch vs real-time inference
- Feature engineering pipelines
- Model reuse across use cases
- Standardize implementation of common AI solutions:
- Forecasting frameworks
- Classification pipelines
- Anomaly detection frameworks
- NLP/document intelligence pipelines
- Ensure solutions are modular, reusable, and scalable
3. Data & Platform Integration
- Data Pipeline Alignment:
- Ensure AI solutions effectively leverage enterprise data pipelines (e.g., Databricks).
- Feature & Data Strategy:
- Guide design of features and data structures required for high-performing models.
- Platform Collaboration:
- Work closely with Platform Engineers on infrastructure, compute, and scalability.
4. MLOps, CI/CD & Lifecycle Management
- Define and enforce MLOps standards using MLflow, including:
- Experiment tracking
- Model versioning and registry
- Promotion workflows (Dev → QA → Prod)
- Co-design CI/CD pipelines with Platform Engineering:
- Automated model testing
- Validation gates before deployment
- Environment consistency across stages
- Establish deployment patterns:
- Batch scoring pipelines
- Scheduled retraining jobs
- Model serving endpoints where needed
5. Testing, Validation & Trust
- Define testing frameworks covering:
- Model performance validation
- Data validation and schema enforcement
- Backtesting (especially for forecasting)
- Establish standards for:
- Drift detection (data + model)
- Monitoring and alerting
- Drive adoption of:
- Explainability techniques (SHAP, feature importance)
- Business-level validation (not just statistical metrics)
6. Security, Governance & Responsible AI
- Define model governance standards:
- Model approval workflows
- Version control and rollback strategies
- Auditability via MLflow and logging
- Ensure:
- Data access controls and compliance
- Traceability from raw data → features → models → outputs
- Drive responsible AI practices:
- Bias detection and mitigation
- Transparency and explainability where required
7. Cross-Functional Leadership & Mentorship
- Technical Mentorship:
- Guide AI Engineers and support broader team development.
- Collaboration:
- Align AI initiatives with Data Engineering, BI, and Platform strategies.
- Stakeholder Engagement:
- Translate complex AI solutions into business value and ensure adoption.
8. Innovation & Continuous Improvement
- Technology Evaluation:
- Continuously assess emerging AI tools, frameworks, and capabilities.
- AI Platform Evolution:
- Drive improvements in AI tooling, workflows, and scalability.
- Automation & Efficiency:
- Promote automation and reusable AI components.
What Success Looks Like
- AI solutions are scalable, production-ready, and reusable across use cases
- Models are governed, traceable, and continuously monitored
- MLOps processes (MLflow, CI/CD) are standardized and widely adopted
- AI solutions are deeply integrated into data pipelines and business workflows
- The organization consistently delivers reliable, trusted AI at scale—not experiments
What You Need to Be Successful
- Expert-level Python and deep experience with ML/AI frameworks
- Strong hands-on experience with MLflow (tracking, registry, lifecycle management)
- Deep experience building and deploying production-grade AI/ML systems on Databricks
- Strong experience with MLOps, CI/CD pipelines, and model lifecycle governance
- Experience standardizing AI patterns (forecasting, NLP, anomaly detection, classification)
- Strong understanding of data pipelines and feature engineering dependencies
- Experience with model monitoring, drift detection, and explainability techniques (e.g., SHAP)
- Strong understanding of AI security, governance, and auditability requirements
- Proven ability to define standards and lead technical direction across teams
- 7+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, AI/ML engineering, or related technical fields
- 3+ years designing and deploying production AI/ML systems at enterprise scale
- Experience leading technical strategy and architecture across multiple teams or business domains
- Experience designing and deploying Generative AI solutions using LLMs
- Experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector search, embeddings, and prompt engineering
Bonus Points if You Have
- Experience implementing Generative AI solutions using OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, or similar foundation models
- Experience building enterprise RAG architectures, vector databases, semantic search, and agent-based AI solutions
- Experience with Databricks Mosaic AI, Vector Search, Model Serving, Unity Catalog, and Lakehouse AI capabilities
- Experience with cloud AI services on Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud Platform
- Experience deploying and operating AI workloads using Kubernetes and containerized architectures
- Experience with feature stores, online/offline feature serving, and real-time inference systems
- Experience implementing Responsible AI frameworks, model risk management, and regulatory compliance requirements
- Experience with experimentation platforms, A/B testing, and causal inference methodologies
- Familiarity with modern deep learning frameworks including PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Hugging Face ecosystems
- Experience supporting forecasting, optimization, recommendation systems, supply chain analytics, or manufacturing AI use cases
- Experience contributing to AI platform strategy and enterprise-wide AI transformation initiatives
- Advanced degree (MS or PhD) in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, or a related field
Salary Ranges:
HARMAN is proud to be an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.
Skills Required
- Expert-level Python
- Deep experience with ML/AI frameworks
- Strong hands-on experience with MLflow (tracking, registry, lifecycle management)
- Deep experience building and deploying production-grade AI/ML systems on Databricks
- Strong experience with MLOps, CI/CD pipelines, and model lifecycle governance
- Experience standardizing AI patterns (forecasting, NLP, anomaly detection, classification)
- Strong understanding of data pipelines and feature engineering dependencies
- Experience with model monitoring, drift detection, and explainability techniques (e.g., SHAP)
- Strong understanding of AI security, governance, and auditability requirements
- Proven ability to define standards and lead technical direction across teams
- 7+ years experience in software engineering, data engineering, AI/ML engineering, or related fields
- 3+ years designing and deploying production AI/ML systems at enterprise scale
- Experience leading technical strategy and architecture across multiple teams or business domains
- Experience designing and deploying Generative AI solutions using LLMs
- Experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector search, embeddings, and prompt engineering
Harman Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Harman and has not been reviewed or approved by Harman.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is described as comprehensive, often including medical, dental, and vision plans, with HSAs/FSAs and disability or life insurance also referenced. Wellbeing support such as EAP access and onsite occupational health services is also part of the package in some regions.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Lifestyle-oriented benefits include employee product discounts and region-specific perks like free fruit deliveries, Cycle to Work schemes, and meal coupons or allowances. Flexible schedules and work-from-home options are also part of the overall offering where roles and projects allow.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is repeatedly characterized as solid or market-aligned for many roles, with salary payments described as consistent and on time. Compensation is also tied to performance in some accounts, reinforcing a perception of basic fairness for a portion of employees.
Harman Insights
What We Do
Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, HARMAN (harman.com) designs and engineers connected products and solutions for automakers, consumers, and enterprises worldwide, including connected car systems, audio and visual products, enterprise automation solutions; and services supporting the Internet of Things. With leading brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, Mark Levinson® and Revel®, HARMAN is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where they perform around the world. More than 50 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and connected car systems. Our software services power billions of mobile devices and systems that are connected, integrated and secure across all platforms, from work and home to car and mobile. HARMAN has a workforce of approximately 30,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In March 2017, HARMAN became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. HARMAN is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer. Minorities, women, veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply. HARMAN offers a great work environment, challenging career opportunities, professional training and competitive compensation. Looking for a challenge where your experience is valued? Come see what you can achieve as a leader with HARMAN!
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