Principal R&D AI Software Engineer (Remote)

Progressive Leasing is a leading provider of in-store and e-commerce lease-to-own solutions. They are seeking a Principal R&D AI Software Engineer to design, build, and deliver advanced AI-powered solutions while collaborating with various teams to drive AI adoption and innovation.

Responsibilities:

• Architect, design, and develop proof-of-concepts and early-stage production systems leveraging LLMs, agentic workflows, vector databases, and emerging AI technologies
• Work closely with the VP of Research & Development to shape technical direction, evaluate emerging tools, and identify high-impact opportunities for AI adoption
• Build integrations with platforms such as Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and other leading models using APIs, SDKs, and custom toolchains
• Develop full-stack solutions end-to-end, including API development, data pipelining, infrastructure provisioning, and cloud-native deployments
• Create advanced prompts, system instructions, tools, and agent architectures to elevate automation, reasoning, and decision-making across business processes
• Partner with engineering, product, data, and security teams to validate feasibility, ensure responsible-AI standards, and transition successful POCs toward production readiness
• Maintain a high sense of ownership over solution design, performance, quality, and reliability
• Actively research, experiment, and document findings to keep Progressive Leasing at the cutting edge of applied AI

Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering with deep expertise in full-stack development, distributed systems, and cloud architectures
• Senior-level proficiency in AI integrations, LLM APIs, agent development, prompt engineering, and orchestration frameworks
• In‑depth expertise in cloud infrastructure design, automation, and deployment with AWS
• Strong programming capability in Python, plus experience with JavaScript/TypeScript and complementary backend frameworks
• Hands-on experience building APIs, automating workflows, and designing scalable services using JSON, REST, and event-driven patterns
• Solid understanding of databases (SQL/NoSQL), vector embeddings, and data modeling for AI-powered applications
• Experience designing POCs, running experiments, and driving MVP-to-production evolution
• Ability to work autonomously, move quickly, and distill ambiguous problem spaces into actionable technical solutions
• Strong communication skills with the ability to influence decision-making and explain complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences
• Curiosity, creativity, and a passion for staying ahead of the rapidly evolving AI landscape