Principal Engineer, AI & Emerging Technology

About the role

TAL, a life insurer backed by Daiichi Life, is looking for a Principal Engineer, AI & Emerging Technology in Sydney. You will be the most senior technical specialist in AI engineering, shaping the direction, architecture and governance of AI across the enterprise. You will lead generative AI, agentic systems and production machine learning, partner with delivery teams on complex technical challenges, and build reference architectures, reusable patterns and technical standards so solutions are secure, reliable and fit for purpose in a regulated environment.

Key responsibilities

• Set technical direction and reference architectures for AI solutions across the portfolio, covering generative AI, agentic systems, ML and supporting platforms.
• Own critical design decisions with Architecture, aligning solutions with TAL's technology strategy, platform foundations and integration patterns.
• Provide technical assurance on high-risk designs and act as escalation point for complex engineering trade-offs.
• Work with delivery pods on complex integrations, agentic workflows, performance, reliability and evaluation.
• Define and evolve engineering standards, patterns and best practices, including agentic software development, CI/CD, testing and observability.
• Champion reuse of shared AI platforms, gateways and governance tooling.
• Identify technical risks such as model risk, data privacy, security and drift, partnering with Cyber and Risk on controls.
• Stay ahead of AI, machine learning and agentic engineering advances and evaluate new technologies.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, AI or a related field; advanced degrees preferred.
• 10+ years in software, AI/ML or data engineering roles, with a record of shipping complex AI solutions to production at scale.
• Proven principal-level or senior technical leadership experience, setting architecture and standards across teams and leading through influence.

Required skills

• Deep expertise in generative AI, LLM-based and agentic systems, and MLOps/LLMOps including evaluation, monitoring and safe deployment.
• Extensive hands-on experience with major cloud platforms (Azure preferred), including AI/ML services, APIs, containers and modern integration patterns.
• Expert Python and fluency with AI-assisted and agentic development workflows.
• CI/CD, automated testing, observability and software engineering principles embedded across teams.

What we offer

• Flexible and blended ways of working.
• Learning, leadership development, LinkedIn Learning and global career opportunities through the Daiichi Life Group.
• Life, income protection and total and permanent disability insurance, plus employee insurance discounts.
• Wellbeing support including an Employee Assistance Program, annual flu vaccinations and health initiatives.
• Paid parental leave, wellbeing leave, community leave and purchased leave options.
• TAL Rewards Plus with discounts at hundreds of retailers and services.