Principal Engineer, AI Platform
Epic Games
Cary, NC · Posted October 23, 2026
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November 2026
- #8Best cities for AI-skill jobs in the Southeast12% · of 87
- #11Best cities for junior jobs in North Carolina23% · of 11
- #15Best cities for mid-career professionals in the Southeast58% · of 87
- #19Cities with the most hybrid jobs in the Southeast11% · of 84
- #25Best cities for remote-friendly jobs7% · of 100
- #25Best cities for director and executive jobs in the Southeast19% · of 87
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- Best cities for data and analytics jobs #1 New York (1,713 openings)
- Best cities for data and analytics pay after cost of living #1 Foster ($232k)
- Most requested AI skills in data and analytics jobs #1 Machine learning engineering (17.1%)
- AI tools named most often in data and analytics jobs #1 Databricks (7.6%)
- Employers with the most data and analytics jobs #1 Amazon (711 roles)
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How AI is used in this kind of work
Among computer and information research scientists, AI is already used for a large share of the tasks. Measured exposure for computer and information research scientists: 34% (high).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Epic Games has filed 2 layoff notices in the last twelve months, covering 293 workers, most recently March 2026. These are public filings with state labor departments, and an open role can sit alongside them. See the filings
Skills this job asks for
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About the job
WHAT MAKES US EPIC?
At the core of Epic’s success are talented, passionate people. Epic prides itself on creating a collaborative, welcoming, and creative environment. Whether it’s building award-winning games or crafting engine technology that enables others to make visually stunning interactive experiences, we’re always innovating.
Being Epic means being a part of a team that continually strives to do right by our community and users. We’re constantly innovating to raise the bar of engine and game development.
ONLINE INFRASTRUCTURE
What We Do
We enable Epic’s online services teams to build, deploy, and manage services that are used by more than half a billion players around the world. Our mission is to provide world class tools and platforms to improve the experience of our developers and make it easier, faster, and safer to build, operate, and scale their applications. We operate at massive scale as one of the largest cloud computing users in the world.
What You'll Do
As Technical Lead / Principal Engineer on the Al Engineering team, you'll provide technical leadership and strategic vision for the Al-powered platforms, tools and services that accelerate development velocity and productivity across Epic. You'll guide a team of engineers in building high-impact products like unified Al code review systems, Cloud agent hosting, centralized Al knowledge base and developer experience tools that serve thousands of folks across the company. This role sits at the intersection of Al innovation, practical engineering, and technical leadership. You'll set the technical direction for tools that developers across Epic use every day, establish best practices for Al-powered development tooling, mentor engineers, and shape how thousands of engineers write, review, and ship code. On top of that you'll be hands-on building complex aspects of the systems and working heavily with Al agents to implement, test, release, and operate these critical platforms.
In this role, you will
• Provide technical leadership and architectural vision for production-grade AI developer tools used by thousands of engineers across Epic's major codebases (Unreal Engine, Fortnite, and more)
• Drive architectural decisions for scalable, maintainable developer-facing tools across multiple modalities: CLI and desktop tools, web apps, build process integrations, services, and APIs
• Pioneer and establish patterns for modern AI frameworks and agent architectures, setting standards for the broader team
• Partner with leadership and high-value teams to identify strategic opportunities and design/build/validate new platforms
• Design and implement security, governance, and compliance protocols for AI platforms, including secret management, workload identity, and runtime isolation policies
• Define measurement strategies and success metrics to track impact and continuously improve tool effectiveness
• Mentor and grow a team of software engineers, conducting architecture reviews and raising the bar for technical excellence
What we're looking for
• B.S. in Computer Science or equivalent experience with 10+ years building production software systems
• Track record of providing technical leadership for complex software projects from conception to delivery at scale
• Proven experience in "zero-to-one" platform ownership: leading the technical design, architectural strategy, and initial build-out of new platforms before they are fully staffed and scaled
• Expert-level experience with REST APIs, microservices, and distributed systems
• Experience operating and orchestrating scalable services on Kubernetes, including managing container lifecycle and security configurations
• Experience with and high level of interest in using and building AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot)
• Proven ability to turn ambiguous organizational problems into concrete technical strategies and drive them to completion
This role is open to multiple locations across the US (including WA).
Pay Transparency Information
The expected annual base pay range(s) for this position are detailed below. Each base pay range is relevant only for individuals who are residents of or will be expected to work within the specified locale. Compensation varies based on a variety of factors, which include (but aren’t limited to) things such as skills and competencies, qualifications, knowledge, and experience. In addition to base pay, most employees are eligible to participate in Epic’s generous benefit plans and discretionary incentive programs (subject to the terms of those plans or programs).
Washington Base Pay Range
$223,199—$327,358 USD
ABOUT US
Epic Games is a leading interactive entertainment company. For over 30 years we've been making award-winning games and engine technology that empowers others to make visually stunning games and 3D content that bring environments to life like never before. Epic's award-winning Unreal Engine technology not only provides game developers the ability to build high-fidelity, interactive experiences for PC, console, mobile, and VR, it is also a tool being embraced by content creators across a variety of industries such as media and entertainment, automotive, and architectural design. As we continue to build our Engine technology and develop remarkable games, we strive to build teams of world-class talent.
Like what you hear? Come be a part of something Epic!
Epic Games deeply values diverse teams and an inclusive work culture, and we are proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. Learn more about our Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Policy here.
Note to Recruitment Agencies: Epic does not accept any unsolicited resumes or approaches from any unauthorized third party (including recruitment or placement agencies) (i.e., a third party with whom we do not have a negotiated and validly executed agreement). We will not pay any fees to any unauthorized third party. Further details on these matters can be found here.