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Principal Systems Engineer (C++) - AI Infrastructure

$50-75/hrRemoteFreelanceCODING

About the Role

What if your deep C++ expertise could directly shape the infrastructure powering the world's most advanced AI systems? We're looking for a seasoned C++ Systems Engineer to design and build high-performance pipelines, annotation tooling, and evaluation infrastructure used by leading AI labs at the frontier of model development.

This is a fully remote, flexible contract role for engineers who thrive on complex systems problems and want their work to matter at scale.

  • Organization: Alignerr
  • Type: Hourly Contract
  • Location: Remote
  • Commitment: 20–40 hours/week

What You'll Do

  • Design, build, and optimize high-performance C++ systems supporting large-scale AI data pipelines and evaluation workflows
  • Develop full-stack tooling and backend services for data annotation, validation, and quality control at scale
  • Improve reliability, performance, and safety across existing production C++ codebases
  • Identify bottlenecks and edge cases in data and system behavior, and implement robust, scalable solutions
  • Collaborate with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training and evaluation workflows
  • Participate in synchronous design reviews to iterate on architecture and implementation decisions

Who You Are

  • Native or fluent English speaker with clear written and verbal communication skills
  • 5+ years of professional experience writing production C++ for large-scale systems
  • Strong full-stack development background with deep systems programming expertise
  • Advanced knowledge of build system architecture and package management strategies
  • Experienced designing reliable, production-grade systems with rigorous error handling
  • Proficient with memory sanitizers and tooling to ensure memory safety
  • Able to commit 20–40 hours per week consistently

Nice to Have

  • Prior experience with data annotation, data quality, or evaluation systems
  • Familiarity with AI/ML workflows, model training, or benchmarking pipelines
  • Experience with distributed systems design or developer tooling

Why Join Us

  • Work on cutting-edge AI infrastructure alongside leading research labs at the frontier of AI
  • Fully remote and flexible — work when and where it suits you
  • Freelance autonomy with the structure of meaningful, high-impact engineering work
  • Contribute directly to systems that shape how next-generation AI models are built and evaluated
  • Potential for ongoing work and contract extension as new projects launch