Principal AI Engineer - Hybrid in Bangalore

About this job

As a Principal AI Engineer at Smartsheet in Bangalore, you will play a crucial role in the Intelligent Work Management Platform team, uniting human teams with AI agents to automate tasks and uncover insights at scale. The role involves owning the target-state architecture for Smartsheet's AI platform, which integrates data, agents, knowledge graphs, and context graphs into a single cohesive system. A normal day for this hybrid role involves setting frameworks for agent orchestration, designing schemas and retrieval patterns, building reference agent frameworks, creating shared tools libraries, and leading technical engagements with strategic partners like AWS, Databricks, and Anthropic. You will work across multiple teams and disciplines to solve complex platform challenges, rapidly prototyping solutions, and establishing security, deployment, and governance standards.

Responsibilities

• Own the target-state architecture for Smartsheet's AI platform and agent framework.
• Design and manage schemas, ingestion pipelines, and retrieval grounding patterns.
• Build, maintain, and publish shared reference agent frameworks, skills, and tools libraries.
• Develop fast, slim prototypes to de-risk architecture decisions before official roadmaps.
• Define deployment, security, governance patterns, and the AI governance plane.
• Lead technical relationships with strategic technology partners like Databricks, AWS, and Anthropic.
• Partner with Principal Engineers and team leads to align on platform milestones.

Requirements

• Deep, hands-on experience architecting production agentic systems on Databricks, AWS Bedrock/AgentCore, and MCPs.
• Experience in agent harness design, tracing, observability, Evals, Responsible AI, and cost instrumentation.
• Background in Knowledge and Context graph systems, ontology design, and ingestion pipelines.
• Track record of rapid prototyping and shipping working software that drives adoption.
• Experience designing reusable, versioned software interfaces with clear interface contracts.
• Familiarity with modern LLM and agent tooling such as Strands SDK and MCP.
• Proven ability to set cross-team technical standards and influence without formal authority.
• Legally eligible to work in India on an ongoing basis.

Who should apply

This role suits an experienced technical leader who thrives on variety, ownership, and cross-functional collaboration within a global platform environment. Ideal candidates possess a strong builder's mindset with deep architectural expertise in production AI and agentic systems. Because the posting does not state specific years of experience or education requirements, applicants should focus on demonstrating hands-on proficiency with modern AI tooling, strong architectural judgment, and the ability to influence technical direction without positional authority.

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