{"id":162485,"url":"https://alion.io/job/wagepoint-principal-software-development-engineer-applied-ai","title":"Principal Software Development Engineer - Applied AI","company":{"id":58152,"name":"Wagepoint","domain":"wagepoint.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/wagepoint","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Teamtailor","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"inferred_company_offices","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"inferred","locations":["Calgary, Canada"],"countries":["CA"],"hiring_countries":["CA"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":77000,"max_usd":157000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":13},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":".NET","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"C#","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Clean Architecture","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"LLM Guardrails","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"A2A","optional":true},{"name":"Model Context Protocol","optional":true},{"name":"pgvector","optional":true},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":true},{"name":"Rest-Assured","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-23T15:13:10Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-23","last_verified_at":"2026-10-16T21:48:05Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":85,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":85},"description":"Who we are:\nAt Wagepoint, we're good people. It's easy to feel that way when you're surrounded by folks doing the best work of their careers, building great payroll software for small businesses across Canada.\nOur team brings together diverse backgrounds, perspectives, experiences, and ideas to make payroll the easiest part of running a business.\nWe're remote-first, growing, and looking for passionate people who don't settle for the first solution or the way it's been done before. We care deeply about our customers and each other, and understand that when it comes to payroll, getting it right matters.\nOur values guide how we work and what we expect from one another:\nCultivate Impact by focusing on what matters most and delivering meaningful outcomes for our customers.\n\nUnify as One Team by collaborating openly, communicating clearly, and rallying around shared goals.\n\nStay Curious and Kind by challenging assumptions, learning quickly, and leading with empathy.\n\nIf you want to build the future of payroll in a place where your ideas are welcomed and your contributions matter, look no further!\nThe Role:\nWe’re looking for a talentedPrincipal Software Development Engineer - Applied AI, who enjoys tackling hard problems and wants to create meaningful impact for small businesses across Canada. You’ll set the technical strategy for AI Products at Wagepoint, authoring the architecture decision records that define platform boundaries, persistence standards, and quality gates for every team building AI features, and setting the guardrails that let Engineering teams experiment with agentic AI.You will report directly to our VP, Engineering.\nYour decisions are the ones other engineers’ proposals must cite and align to. Other teams’ roadmaps depend on getting your calls right. You’ll keep Wagepoint’s AI platform choices current against a fast-moving landscape, articulate tradeoffs in terms leadership can act on, and multiply the org through mentorship, pairing with and unblocking the engineers building on your standards.\nLike every Principal Engineer at Wagepoint, you also carry broad architectural leadership beyond AI, including well-architected, highly performant distributed systems, and AI-augmented development practices across the SDLC.\nLike every engineer at Wagepoint, you do not write software by hand. You’re a major contributor to the software factory, the agentic pipeline of specs, agent implementation, agent review, and human approval that produces our software. You’ll own specific agents within it and work with your teammates to constantly improve the factory itself.\nWagepoint’s goal is Level 4 on our agentic development ladder (engineers approve the spec, agents implement and review, engineers approve the PR), advancing toward Level 5 over time, without ever compromising quality in our highly regulated payroll and tax reporting environment. You are responsible for making that transition possible.\n85% of your focus is customer-facing AI products and the platform beneath them. The rest goes to building Wagepoint’s internal use of AI and our software factory.\nThis role is measured by scope of influence, not just personal output.\nWhat You'll Be Expected To Own:\nAuthor the decision records that define how AI gets built org-wide, and resolve cross-team ambiguity with written, cited decisions.\n\nDefine and maintain the boundary between AI services and the product stack, and own the shared service kit.\n\nMake quantified platform calls (evals, observability, persistence) against named vendors with cost models.\n\nDefine how every AI team gates quality: eval standards in CI/CD, drift monitoring, release criteria.\n\nSet resource-isolation and agentic-workflow guardrails, and own the responsible AI and audit posture org-wide.\n\nKeep platform choices current against the landscape, and publish dated verification notes and revisit triggers.\n\nLead design of large-scale, distributed, customer-facing systems where AI intersects the product stack, and apply DDD to define domain boundaries.\n\nBe a go-to technical resource across teams, unblock high-impact initiatives, and shape engineering-wide standards through RFCs and reviews.\n\nSet the org-wide path from today’s baseline to Level 4 of the agentic development ladder and beyond toward Level 5, while holding the quality and compliance bar required in payroll and tax reporting.\n\nWhat You Bring To The Table:\n10+ years of professional software engineering experience with progressively increasing impact, including multiple years designing and operating production LLM/agentic systems at Staff-level scope or above.\n\nProven technical leadership designing distributed systems and microservices for complex domains, with working knowledge of DDD and Clean Architecture principles applied to build highly performant, well-architected systems (prior DDD project experience not required).\n\nFull-stack breadth, spanning modern front-end frameworks and a Python back-end, sufficient to lead architecture across the entire product stack, not just AI services. .NET/C# experience is a plus, not a requirement.\n\nTrack record of authoring architecture standards adopted beyond your own team, producing decision records that other senior engineers review, cite, and build on.\n\nDemonstrated quantified build-vs-buy decisions against named vendors (e.g., eval/observability platforms, vector stores), with cost models and explicitly rejected alternatives.\n\nDeep fluency in the current AI platform landscape: stateful agent orchestration, MCP and inter-agent (A2A) interoperability, eval-gated CI/CD, and vector-enabled persistence (PostgreSQL/pgvector, DiskANN-class indexing, managed offerings).\n\nA considered point of view on where Wagepoint’s model strategy should be in two years, including whether and where to adopt fine-tuned small language models versus frontier APIs, grounded in cost, latency, and control tradeoffs.\n\nExperience defining platform boundaries between AI stacks and an existing product stack (e.g., Python AI services alongside .NET), including shared service-kit libraries other teams consume.\n\nSecurity and governance leadership: resource isolation, agentic workflow guardrails, responsible AI in a regulated, money-movement domain.\n\nExecutive communication, articulating platform tradeoffs in terms leadership can act on, covering cost, risk, and optionality, not just engineering detail.\n\nA high degree of agency, building net-new systems and optimizing API performance where no established pattern exists, forging the path rather than waiting for one, with demonstrated ability to bring other engineers along that path.\n\nDemonstrated multiplier effect through mentorship: pairing with, unblocking, and growing senior engineers.\n\nA passionate and key contributor to Wagepoint’s software factory, directing and reviewing agentic development while maintaining and improving our high quality and compliance bar.\n\nWhat we bring to the table:\nImpact: Dig in and directly contribute to Wagepoint’s growth and success.\n\nCulture: Work alongside a team that genuinely enjoys solving problems together, celebrates wins, supports one another through challenges, and still finds time for the occasional terrible joke.\n\nGrowth: We believe learning is part of the job. We’re committed to helping you Get Better Every Day (a representation of our Stay Curious and Kind value!) by offering professional development, new experiences, and career growth as we continue to evolve.\n\nInnovation: Curiosity and experimentation encouraged! Bring ideas, challenge assumptions, responsibly utilize AI, and help shape better ways of working.\n\nRemote: Work from wherever you do your best work. Wagepoint has always been remote-first, giving you flexibility, autonomy, and hopefully a little extra time with the people (and pets) you love.\n\nReady to join the team? Apply now and help us continue making payroll the easiest part of running a business.\nNext steps:\nIf this sounds like the right fit, we’d love to hear from you! No need for a formal cover letter, just send us your resume and if you’d like, a few lines about what excites you about the opportunity.\nIf we agree it's a great match, someone from our team will reach out to schedule a call.\nPsssst!\nIn 2026, we were recognized as one of Canada's Best Workplaces for Mental Wellness and Inclusion. That commitment extends to our hiring process, where we strive to create an experience that is welcoming, respectful, and inclusive from day one.\nWe welcome applicants from all backgrounds, experiences, identities, and perspectives, and we're committed to building a workplace where everyone can thrive.\nAs a remote company, all interviews are conducted virtually. If you require accommodation at any stage of the recruitment process, please let us know. We're happy to support you!\nAs part of our hiring process, AI-based tools are used to support the initial review of applications. Rest assured, our People Ops team carefully reviews all applications and makes the final decisions on candidate progression.\n\nIngénieur ou ingénieure en chef, développement logiciel - IA appliquée\nQui sommes-nous :\nChez Wagepoint, nous sommes du bon monde. Et c'est facile à ressentir quand on est entouré de personnes qui réalisent le meilleur travail de leur carrière, à créer un logiciel de paie remarquable pour les petites entreprises de partout au Canada.\nNotre équipe réunit des parcours, des perspectives, des expériences et des idées variés pour faire de la paie la partie la plus simple de la gestion d'une entreprise.\nLe télétravail est notre norme, nous sommes en pleine croissance et nous cherchons des personnes passionnées qui ne se contentent pas de la première solution venue ni de la façon dont les choses ont toujours été faites. Nous tenons profondément à nos clients comme les uns aux autres, et nous savons qu'en matière de paie, l'exactitude compte.\nNos valeurs orientent notre façon de travailler et ce que nous attendons les uns des autres :\nCultiver l'impact en nous concentrant sur l'essentiel et en offrant des résultats concrets à nos clients.\n\nNe faire qu'une équipe en collaborant ouvertement, en communiquant clairement et en nous ralliant autour d'objectifs communs.\n\nFaire preuve de curiosité et de bienveillance en remettant en question les idées reçues, en apprenant rapidement et en agissant avec empathie.\n\nSi vous voulez bâtir l'avenir de la paie dans un milieu où vos idées sont accueillies et où votre contribution compte, ne cherchez pas plus loin !\nLe rôle :\nNous cherchons une personne de talent au poste d'ingénieur ou ingénieure en chef, développement logiciel - IA appliquée, qui aime s'attaquer à des problèmes difficiles et souhaite avoir un impact réel pour les petites entreprises partout au Canada. Vous définirez la stratégie technique des produits d'IA de Wagepoint : vous rédigerez les registres de décisions d'architecture qui établissent les frontières de la plateforme, les normes de persistance et les points de contrôle de la qualité pour chaque équipe qui conçoit des fonctionnalités d'IA, et vous mettrez en place les garde-fous qui permettent aux équipes d'ingénierie d'expérimenter avec l'IA agentique. Vous relèverez directement de notre vice-présidence, Ingénierie.\nVos décisions sont celles que les propositions des autres ingénieurs devront citer et respecter. Les feuilles de route d'autres équipes dépendent de la justesse de vos choix. Vous maintiendrez à jour les choix de plateforme d'IA de Wagepoint dans un contexte en évolution rapide, vous exposerez les compromis en des termes sur lesquels la direction peut agir, et vous démultiplierez l'organisation par le mentorat, en travaillant en binôme avec les ingénieurs qui s'appuient sur vos normes et en levant leurs obstacles.\nComme tout ingénieur ou ingénieure en chef chez Wagepoint, vous exercerez aussi un leadership architectural étendu au-delà de l'IA, notamment des systèmes distribués bien conçus et hautement performants, ainsi que des pr...","description_format":"text","description_chars":20875,"description_truncated":true,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"French","level":"Advanced (C1)","optional":false}]},"benefits":["Professional development"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Canada","iso":"CA","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Payroll Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-07-23T15:13:10Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":23,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.639,"p_room":0.36,"age_days":84,"expected_fill_days":54,"reasons":["conf:2","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-16T05:45:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/wagepoint-principal-software-development-engineer-applied-ai","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/wagepoint-principal-software-development-engineer-applied-ai.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-16T22:31:45Z","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":4139,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-17T00:00:00Z"}},"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":58152},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=58152"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fwagepoint-principal-software-development-engineer-applied-ai"},{"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%2Fwagepoint-principal-software-development-engineer-applied-ai"},{"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%2Fwagepoint-principal-software-development-engineer-applied-ai"},{"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/wagepoint-principal-software-development-engineer-applied-ai\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fwagepoint-principal-software-development-engineer-applied-ai"}]}