{"id":2956988,"url":"https://alion.io/job/ifs-senior-lead-principal-software-engineer-agentic-engineering-research-ifs-labs","title":"Senior Lead / Principal Software Engineer (Agentic Engineering / Research) - IFS Labs","company":{"id":4263,"name":"IFS","domain":"ifs.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/ifs","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"SmartRecruiters","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":76,"open_postings":35,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.943,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":40,"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Colombo, Sri Lanka"],"countries":["LK"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":13000,"max_usd":39000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_cell_scaled_by_country","sample_n":2257},"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agentic Workflows","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"C#","optional":false},{"name":"Claude Code","optional":false},{"name":"Copilot","optional":false},{"name":"Cursor","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":true},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":true},{"name":"Digital Twin","optional":true},{"name":"LLM","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-20T14:00:07Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-20","last_verified_at":"2026-11-05T08:22:36Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":15,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":15},"description":"IFS is a billion-dollar revenue company with 7000+ employees on all continents. Our leading AI technology is the backbone of our award-winning enterprise software solutions, enabling our customers to be their best when it really matters-at the Moment of Service™. Our commitment to internal AI adoption has allowed us to stay at the forefront of technological advancements, ensuring our colleagues can unlock their creativity and productivity, and our solutions are always cutting-edge.\nAt IFS, we’re flexible, we’re innovative, and we’re focused not only on how we can engage with our customers but on how we can make a real change and have a worldwide impact. We help solve some of society’s greatest challenges, fostering a better future through our agility, collaboration, and trust.\nWe celebrate diversity and understand our responsibility to reflect the diverse world we work in. We are committed to promoting an inclusive workforce that fully represents the many different cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints of our customers, our partners, and our communities. As a truly international company serving people from around the globe, we realize that our success is tantamount to the respect we have for those different points of view.\nBy joining our team, you will have the opportunity to be part of a global, diverse environment; you will be joining a winning team with a commitment to sustainability; and a company where we get things done so that you can make a positive impact on the world.\nWe’re looking for innovative and original thinkers to work in an environment where you can #MakeYourMoment so that we can help others make theirs. With the power of our AI-driven solutions, we empower our team to change the status quo and make a real difference.\nIf you want to change the status quo, we’ll help you make your moment. Join Team Purple. Join IFS.\n At IFS Labs, we explore what is next for enterprise software and turn emerging technologies into working capabilities that shape future IFS products. Our focus spans applied AI, agentic systems, next-generation application architectures, data services, strategic technology direction, and technology partnerships.\nWe are looking for a Senior Lead / Principal Software Engineer with strong software engineering and architectural skills, combined with a product mindset and a passion for solving real-world problems through software and AI.\nThis is a hands-on technical leadership role focused on building software, validating emerging technologies, creating production-grade prototypes, and influencing future product and technology direction across IFS. The emphasis is on delivering working solutions that can move from investigation and prototype into real product capabilities.\nWe are particularly interested in candidates who embrace modern AI-driven engineering practices and agentic engineering approaches to accelerate research, architecture, software development, testing, and delivery. The successful candidate will be comfortable using AI as a force multiplier-leveraging agentic workflows to automate routine knowledge work, rapidly evaluate technologies, synthesise architectural insights, and significantly shorten the path from idea to working software while maintaining high standards of engineering quality.\nProjects typically run for 6-12 months and are delivered individually or in small teams. Work ranges from evaluating emerging technologies and architectural patterns to building capabilities that influence future IFS products, platforms, and technology strategy.\nA key part of the role involves creating compelling demonstrations, proof-of-concepts, and technical showcases for major IFS events, customer engagements, and strategic initiatives. This includes building innovative solutions, validating ideas with customers and partners, and communicating technical vision to diverse audiences.\nAs a Senior Lead / Principal Software Engineer in IFS Labs, you will identify, evaluate, and apply emerging technologies to real customer and industry challenges, transforming ideas into working capabilities that influence future IFS products, platforms, and technology strategy.\nKey Responsibilities\nIdentify, evaluate, and validate emerging technologies, architectural patterns, and industry trends relevant to IFS products and customers.\nDesign, build, and deliver prototypes, proof-of-concepts, and production-ready capabilities across software engineering, cloud, data, and AI domains.\nLead technical investigations and architectural studies, producing clear recommendations, reference implementations, and actionable next steps.\nDrive complex technical initiatives from concept through implementation and product handover, applying agentic engineering and AI-assisted workflows to accelerate delivery.\nCollaborate closely with Product Management, Industry teams, Engineering teams, Sales, Presales, customers, and partners to validate ideas, solve real business problems, and shape future IFS products and technology direction.\nContribute to technical strategy, architectural direction, and engineering practices across IFS.\nRepresent IFS in customer engagements, strategic demonstrations, major events, and partner collaborations.\nMentor engineers and champion engineering excellence, technical curiosity, and high-quality delivery.\n Essential\nBachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.\n8+ years of professional experience in software engineering and software architecture, demonstrated through successfully delivered products and platforms.\nDeep expertise in one or more programming languages such as Python, Java, C#, Golang, or TypeScript.\nExtensive experience designing, building, deploying, and operating enterprise-grade software, with strong architectural expertise across distributed, cloud-native, API-driven, and event-driven systems.\nProven track record of taking ideas from concept and prototype through to production-ready solutions that integrate with enterprise applications, business processes, and data platforms.\nDemonstrated proficiency in AI-assisted research and software engineering, using tools such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, and modern AI platforms to accelerate technology evaluation, architectural reasoning, and implementation.\nExceptional ability to rapidly learn and apply new technologies, combined with strong systems thinking, architectural judgement, and a bias towards experimentation and delivery.\nStrong engineering judgement with a relentless focus on code quality, maintainability, security, operational reliability, and fitness for purpose.\nProven ability to lead complex technical initiatives, influence technical direction, and communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.\nAbility to connect technology decisions to customer outcomes, business value, and product strategy, combining innovative thinking with pragmatic execution.\nDesirable\nExperience with applied AI, agentic systems, LLM-powered applications, or data-intensive platforms.\nExperience applying agentic engineering practices and agentic workflows to accelerate research, architecture, implementation, testing, and documentation.\nExperience with Spec-Driven Development (SDD) or comparable agent-driven engineering methodologies such as BMAD.\nHands-on experience with cloud platforms, preferably Azure, including CI/CD, containerization, observability, and infrastructure automation.\nStrong full-stack engineering experience across modern backend technologies.\nExperience working directly with customers, stakeholders, and domain experts to validate ideas and deliver business value.\nExperience with enterprise or industrial domains such as ERP, Service Management, Asset Management, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, industrial IoT, robotics, autonomous systems, digital twins, or cyber-physical systems.\nKnowledge of the IFS product portfolio and the industries it serves.\n We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles, while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community, we drive innovation, strengthen connections, and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best, while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships.","description_format":"text","description_chars":8368,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":false}]},"benefits":["Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Sri Lanka","iso":"LK","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["ERP & Business Management Software","Field Service Management Software","Manufacturing & Industrial Software"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-20T21:49:52Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":56,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.618,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":15,"expected_fill_days":40,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","velocity","win:mid","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/ifs-senior-lead-principal-software-engineer-agentic-engineering-research-ifs-labs","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/ifs-senior-lead-principal-software-engineer-agentic-engineering-research-ifs-labs.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-05T09:09:10Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":11678,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-06T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":4263},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4263"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fifs-senior-lead-principal-software-engineer-agentic-engineering-research-ifs-labs"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fifs-senior-lead-principal-software-engineer-agentic-engineering-research-ifs-labs"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fifs-senior-lead-principal-software-engineer-agentic-engineering-research-ifs-labs"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/ifs-senior-lead-principal-software-engineer-agentic-engineering-research-ifs-labs\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fifs-senior-lead-principal-software-engineer-agentic-engineering-research-ifs-labs"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":2956988}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"ifs.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":2956988},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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