Remote principal engineer jobs

At Turing, top-tier clients are looking to hire principal engineers who can effortlessly design, develop, scale, and implement software projects. The candidate should have the ability to manage an engineering team with a long-term vision to develop highly scalable products and services.

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Job description

Job responsibilities

  • Follow standardized software engineering processes to design, develop, test, and manage applications
  • Plan and execute engineering strategies within the organization
  • Manage engineering teams and influence the technical direction
  • Build medium/large scale projects using analytical & problem-solving skills
  • Mentor & motivate junior software engineers & interns to bring forth innovative solutions
  • Collaborate with the team’s tech lead/manager & implement process improvements
  • Maintain and upgrade existing software systems

Minimum requirements

  • Master’s degree in Computer Science (or equivalent experience)
  • 5-8+ years of experience as a software engineer
  • Proficiency in multiple technologies and frameworks like React.js, Node.js, Python, JavaScript, React Native, PHP, Java, C++, etc.
  • Strong understanding of data structures and algorithms
  • Skilled in computational problem solving, designing, coding, debugging, etc.
  • Ability to lead and manage engineering teams
  • Ability to work full-time (40 hours/week) with a 4 hour overlap with US time zones

Preferred skills

  • Excellent command over data structures and space-time complexity
  • A profound sense of ownership & accountability for end-to-end project lifecycle
  • Strong experience in building complex systems and applications
  • Fluent in both spoken and written English communication

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How to become a Principal Engineer ?

After several years as an engineer, you can begin to take on greater leadership responsibilities. You are responsible for managing your team and ensuring that they are on schedule, in addition to your normal engineering duties. You can advance in your engineering career by taking on these new tasks. We'll go over what principle engineers perform and how to become one in this article.

A principal engineer is a highly skilled engineer who manages a wide range of projects from beginning to end. They tend to take on more of a leadership role as they have more experience in their profession, where they provide support and advice to their team members.

What is the scope of Principal engineering?

Zippia analyses demographics and statistics for Principal Engineers in the United States using a database of 30 million profiles. For accuracy, their estimations are cross-checked against BLS, Census, and current job vacancies data. Following rigorous study and analysis, it was discovered that the United States now employs over 70,294 Principal Engineers, with the average age of an employed Principal Engineer being 41 years old.

Principal Engineers carry huge responsibilities. Teams and individuals are coached by principal engineers. You should expect a good coaching connection and improvement of the coachee if you pair a senior engineer with any other IC. When a principal engineer is assigned to a team, you may anticipate the entire team's results to improve. It may entail coaching managers, senior engineers or taking a more hands-on approach and serving as a role model.

On all levels, principal engineers are regarded as important collaborators in the development of engineers. They are objective, fair, transparent, and inclusive, and they are fully conscious of the weight of their ideas. They can spot team, manager, and individual dysfunctions with ease. They don't have to be able to solve them or find the root of the problem. Last but not least, their feedback is of excellent quality.

What are the roles and responsibilities of a Principal engineer?

On the team, the Principal engineer’s responsibilities include a variety of tasks, such as -

  • Follow standardized software engineering processes to design, develop, test, and manage applications
  • Manage engineering teams and influence the technical direction
  • Plan and execute engineering strategies within the organization
  • Mentor & motivate junior software engineers & interns to bring forth innovative solutions
  • Collaborate with the tech leads/managers & implement process improvements
  • Build medium/large scale projects using analytical & problem-solving skills
  • Maintain and upgrade existing software systems

Senior engineers are usually more technical and focused on coming up with new ideas for their projects. Principal engineers do study and provide recommendations in the field. By studying engineering teams and projects, for example, they may be able to come up with new theories and regulations that engineers all over the world may utilize and learn from.

Senior engineers in a lab, for example, must establish solutions that are critical to the lab's performance. Because there may be few antecedents, they must be inventive in their leadership and implementation. The lab work of the primary engineer provides long-term success and reputation. Every decision they make has the potential to affect the lab or department.

How to become a Principal engineer?

  1. Pick a discipline.

Because engineers often specialize in one sector of the industry, there are many different types of principal engineers. When it comes to deciding on a major, you have the option of choosing from the following disciplines:

  • Computer engineering
  • Biomedical engineering
  • Aerospace engineering
  • Civil engineering
  • Chemical engineering
  • Environmental engineering
  • Mechanical engineering
  • Electrical engineering
  • Microelectronic engineering
  • Marine engineering
  • Petroleum engineering
  1. Obtain a degree

To become a principal engineer, you must first obtain a bachelor's degree in a related field of study. While a master's degree or even a doctorate degree may not be required for the position, you may choose to do so. You may demonstrate to employers that you are a true expert in your profession by getting additional qualifications. You can more effectively lead projects and solve difficulties if you specialize in your engineering knowledge.

You must also demonstrate your level of competence and pass a series of exams to earn your registered professional engineer (PE) designation.

  1. Acquire experience

Before taking on this leadership post, most senior engineers have over a decade of engineering experience. Begin to gain the necessary abilities for this position as early as possible in your career. Similarly, at work, volunteer to progressively take on more duties. In this manner, you may advance in your profession while also demonstrating to your employer that you are ready for a promotion.

  1. Create materials for your application.

Even if you're applying for a position as a principal engineer at your current company, you'll need a resume and cover letter. Your high degree of skill and ability must be demonstrated in these application materials. Throughout these publications, emphasize your analytical, communication, and leadership abilities. Include your relevant accomplishments to demonstrate your ability to successfully lead a project.

Become a Turing developer. Apply Now!

Become a Turing developer!

Apply now

Skills required to become a Principal engineer

Here are some of the abilities Principal engineers employ and how they use them in their jobs:

1. Interpersonal skills

Because Principal engineers serve as mentors to junior engineers, understanding coworker issues and queries, as well as working alongside them, may be required. From a higher level, principal engineers must motivate a large number of employees in various sectors and projects.

2. Communication skills

Principal engineers convey difficult technological concerns to department management and negotiate with vendors using their communication abilities. Principal engineers share high-level strategies with their teams and negotiate agreements with other companies and individuals in the area.

3. Innovative and creative skills

Principal engineers must be innovative and creative in order to discover answers for their group's individual tasks. Principal engineers examine projects from many labs and departments in order to develop new theories and tactics that can be used by others in the field.

4. Leadership qualities

Principal engineers manage projects and teams, which necessitates delegating responsibilities and assessing performance. Other leadership abilities used by principal engineers include brainstorming, motivating, and ensuring that all teams have the necessary information and direction.

Become a Turing developer. Apply Now!

Become a Turing developer!

Apply now

How to get remote Principal engineer jobs?

A principal engineer is, first and foremost, a position of leadership. They should concentrate on the strategic area, which will almost always be shared by several teams. These areas are frequently formalized as groups, and they almost definitely reflect critical areas in your organization's structure.

This leadership is backed up by feedback at every level; you'll hear it from a junior engineer who has been working with a principal for a few weeks, as well as their senior engineering manager.

Although they are major engineers, they do not work in isolation. They ensure that we develop cohesive strategies and execute them, and in order to do so, they must ensure that product, design, and business are all in sync. They can lead through functions or, at the very least, partner with and gain alignment with more organization-focused leaders such as a director of engineering.

Principal engineers must work hard enough to keep up with all of the industry's current advancements and to steadily expand their expertise. They must successfully and continuously follow the best practices in their sector to excel. There are two things that developers should consider moving ahead in this regard. While they are practicing, they should assist someone who is less experienced and skilled at teaching new abilities. You must also fine-tune your analytical, computer programming, and soft skills as a Principal engineer.

Turing has the best Principal engineer jobs that fit your engineering career goals. Working on difficult technical and business problems with cutting-edge technologies will help you grow quickly. Get full-time, long-term remote Principal engineer jobs with greater pay and faster career progression by joining a network of the world's greatest developers.

Why become a Principal engineer at Turing?

Jobs in the United States that are best in class
Rapid advancement in your career
Developers' exclusive community
With Turing jobs, there will be no more looking back
Work from home full-time
Better remuneration

How much does Turing pay their Principal engineers?

Every Principal engineer at Turing has the freedom to select his/her salary. Turing, on the other hand, will recommend a wage at which we are confident we can offer you a rewarding and long-term opportunity. Our remote Principal engineer jobs recommendations are based on our market analysis and demand from our most prestigious clients.

Frequently Asked Questions

Turing is an AGI infrastructure company specializing in post-training large language models (LLMs) to enhance advanced reasoning, problem-solving, and cognitive tasks. Founded in 2018, Turing leverages the expertise of its globally distributed technical, business, and research experts to help Fortune 500 companies deploy customized AI solutions that transform operations and accelerate growth. As a leader in the AGI ecosystem, Turing partners with top AI labs and enterprises to deliver cutting-edge innovations in generative AI, making it a critical player in shaping the future of artificial intelligence.

After uploading your resume, you will have to go through the three tests -- seniority assessment, tech stack test, and live coding challenge. Once you clear these tests, you are eligible to apply to a wide range of jobs available based on your skills.

No, you don't need to pay any taxes in the U.S. However, you might need to pay taxes according to your country’s tax laws. Also, your bank might charge you a small amount as a transaction fee.

We, at Turing, hire remote developers for over 100 skills like React/Node, Python, Angular, Swift, React Native, Android, Java, Rails, Golang, PHP, Vue, among several others. We also hire engineers based on tech roles and seniority.

Communication is crucial for success while working with American clients. We prefer candidates with a B1 level of English i.e. those who have the necessary fluency to communicate without effort with our clients and native speakers.

Currently, we have openings only for the developers because of the volume of job demands from our clients. But in the future, we might expand to other roles too. Do check out our careers page periodically to see if we could offer a position that suits your skills and experience.

Our unique differentiation lies in the combination of our core business model and values. To advance AGI, Turing offers temporary contract opportunities. Most AI Consultant contracts last up to 3 months, with the possibility of monthly extensions—subject to your interest, availability, and client demand—up to a maximum of 10 continuous months. For our Turing Intelligence business, we provide full-time, long-term project engagements.

No, the service is absolutely free for software developers who sign up.

Ideally, a remote developer needs to have at least 3 years of relevant experience to get hired by Turing, but at the same time, we don't say no to exceptional developers. Take our test to find out if we could offer something exciting for you.

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In a nutshell, Turing aims to make the world flat for opportunity. Turing is the brainchild of serial A.I. entrepreneurs Jonathan and Vijay, whose previous successfully-acquired AI firm was powered by exceptional remote talent. Also part of Turing’s band of innovators are high-profile investors, such as Facebook's first CTO (Adam D'Angelo), executives from Google, Amazon, Twitter, and Foundation Capital.

Equal Opportunity Policy

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LLM Trainer - Computer Usage Data Collection

About Turing:

Turing is one of the world’s fastest-growing AI companies accelerating the advancement and deployment of powerful AI systems.

Turing helps customers in two ways: Working with the world’s leading AI labs to advance frontier model capabilities in thinking, reasoning, coding, agentic behavior, multimodality, multilinguality, STEM and frontier knowledge; and leveraging that work to build real-world AI systems that solve mission-critical priorities for companies.


Role Overview

We are developing a computer usage dataset to train intelligent systems that understand how users interact with software applications. As an LLM Trainer (Computer Usage Data Collection), you will record your screen while performing detailed, multi-step computer-based tasks — such as configuring applications, exploring tools, or completing productivity workflows.
Your recordings will be annotated and used to help train models that interpret and predict user workflows, enhancing the realism and usability of AI assistants.


What Does Day-to-Day Look Like

  • Record your screen activity while completing assigned computer-based tasks.
  • Carefully follow step-by-step documentation to complete each task accurately.
  • Ensure all recordings are high-quality, complete, and free from interruptions.
  • Label or verify events (clicks, keypresses, actions) as instructed.
  • Maintain accuracy and consistency in file naming and documentation.
  • Adhere to strict privacy and data-handling protocols.

Types of Tasks

You will perform tasks across diverse software domains, such as:

  • Education & Productivity: Using learning or organizational tools.
  • Software & Development Environments: Setting up or configuring tools (no coding required).
  • Data & Analytics: Working with dashboards or monitoring interfaces.
  • Creativity Tools: Using design or visualization applications.
  • General Workflows: Everyday tasks like browsing, file management, or configuration settings.
Note: The specific tools and environments will vary widely — adaptability and willingness to learn new interfaces are key.

Requirements
  • Computer with Mac or Linux operating system and 8GB RAM or higher.
  • 2+ years of experience with any programming language preferably Python
  • Strong ability to follow detailed written documentation and execute steps precisely.
  • Comfort with navigating various software applications and interfaces.
  • Basic technical literacy — ability to install or configure software using provided guides.
  • Basic coding knowledge and familiarity with environments such as Visual Studio or PyCharm preferred.
  • Excellent attention to detail and consistency in recording and labeling.
  • Reliable computer and stable internet connection.
  • Commitment to confidentiality and secure data handling.

Perks of Freelancing With Turing:

  • Work in a fully remote environment.
  • Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI projects with leading LLM companies.

Offer Details:

  • Engagement  type  : Contractor assignment (no medical/paid leave)
  • Duration of contract : 1 month; [expected start date is next week]

Evaluation Process :

  • 1 round of take home assessment
Telecommunications
10K+ employees
Python
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Backend Engineer (Golang / Python / Kafka)
About the Client

Our mission is to bring community and belonging to everyone in the world. We are a community of communities where people can dive into anything through experiences built around their interests, hobbies, and passions. With more than 50 million people visiting 100,000+ communities daily, it is home to the most open and authentic conversations on the internet.

Role
Campaign Management team's goal is to uplevel and expand the core functionality related to creating and editing ad entities seen across the platform. It is important that our advertisers are able to efficiently and  effectively create, adjust, report, and measure their ads in the most  intuitive way possible. Our team not only builds new products on the Ads platform but we also  support other teams building their products on top of our platform. We  expect our engineers to take ownership and have pride in the work and  support we provide.


Key Responsibilities
  • Design and maintain scalable backend services that power the entire advertising stack
  • Own critical systems including Python, Go, and Kafka infrastructure
  • Own the developer tooling and testing framework that enables team velocity
  • Architect APIs and data models that other teams across Reddit depend on
  • Ensure 99.9%+ uptime for services handling high-volume campaign operations
  • Build monitoring, alerting, and operational tooling for mission-critical advertising infrastructure


Qualifications for this role:

  • 5+ years building scalable backend systems in production environments
  • Strong experience with Python and/or Go
  • You love diving deep into problems, understanding them from all  angles, talking to stakeholders, and designing elegant solutions.
  • You get excited by the prospect of deep-diving into performance  issues, finding the root cause, and implementing solutions that have  impact across the application.
  • Deep understanding of distributed systems, databases, and API design
  • Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP) and infrastructure as code

Platform Mindset:

  • Track record of building systems that other engineering teams depend on
  • Experience with service-oriented architecture and microservices patterns
  • Understanding of operational concerns: monitoring, logging, alerting, and debugging
  • Passion for code quality, testing frameworks, and developer tooling
  • Background in ad tech or developer experience (preferred)


Offer Details


  • Full-time contractor or full-time employment, depending on the country
  • Remote only, full-time dedication (40 hours/week)
  • Required 4-6 hours overlap with PST (Pacific Standard Time)
  • Competitive compensation package.
  • Opportunities for professional growth and career development.
  • Dynamic and inclusive work environment focused on innovation and teamwork
Media & Internet
251-10K employees
GoApache KafkaPython
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