Principal AI Software Engineer

Principal AI Software Engineer - AI Centre of Excellence

Location: Romania (Remote)

At IRIS Software Group, we’re building the future of engineering. With millions of users relying on our products every day, our mission is to deliver world-class, cloud-native SaaS solutions that empower businesses, schools, and organisations to work smarter.

Now, we’re entering a new chapter – bringing AI into the heart of software engineering.

We’re looking for a Principal AI Software Engineer to play a pioneering role in creating our first AI Pod and shaping our AI Centre of Excellence. This is not a standard Principal Engineer role. You won’t simply be coding – you’ll be teaching our AI tools (such as Devin, Replit, Co-Pilot, Cursor) how to code, how to break down stories into smaller chunks, and how to deliver with the quality and predictability of a high-performing engineering team.

You’ll embed into our first AI pod to help form it, then lift out to seed and mentor future pods, spreading best practice across the engineering organisation. In this role, you’ll be equal parts engineer, coach, and multiplier – ensuring our engineers and AI agents alike work at their best.

What you’ll do:

• Lead the adoption and best practice use of AI tools across Engineering.
• Help define and evolve the engineering culture at global scale.
• Work hands-on inside pods where the toughest problems are being solved, unblocking teams and accelerating delivery.
• Guide engineers to break down complex work into manageable chunks – the same way you’ll teach AI agents to deliver value.
• Drive harmonisation of engineering best practices and influence technical strategy with senior leaders.
• Mentor, coach, and inspire engineers, ensuring quality, velocity, and innovation across teams.
• Represent IRIS in the external technical community, building our reputation as an AI-driven engineering leader.

What you’ll bring

• Significant experience as a Principal Engineer or senior technical leader in large-scale, cloud-native SaaS environments.
• Deep knowledge of engineering best practices, architecture, and design for scalability, resilience, and maintainability.
• A track record of influencing technical strategy across multiple teams or domains.
• Strong ability to mentor, break down complex problems, and enable others to deliver – not just do it yourself.
• Curiosity and drive to pioneer AI in engineering – you’ll thrive in a role where you’re teaching AI to code, not just writing it yourself.
• Excellent communication skills, able to influence senior stakeholders and inspire engineers.

Why this role is different

This is a rare opportunity to help shape the future of engineering. You’ll be at the forefront of how AI will transform software delivery - embedding into the first AI pod, proving out what works, and then scaling those practices across IRIS. You won’t just build great software – you’ll build the playbook for how humans and AI engineers will work together.

Join us, and be part of building something truly pioneering.