Principal Python Engineer

About Ambient: Ambient is an innovative cryptocurrency network built on a Proof of Work (PoW) model that leverages machine intelligence. We incentivize nodes to perform inference, fine-tuning, and pre-training on a single large language model (LLM) with over 600 billion parameters. Ambient replaces Bitcoin by providing a decentralized and open-source alternative where the economy is denominated in machine intelligence.\n\nResponsibilities:\n- Lead the design and development of systems that optimize network traffic and scale for global expansion\n- Drive architectural decisions for high-impact projects, ensuring scalability and reliability\n- Co-author long-term technical roadmaps that set the vision for network scalability, performance, and engineering velocity\n- Set the standard for a culture of engineering and operational excellence\n- Build and nurture effective partnerships across engineering, product, and security teams\n- Lead and conduct design reviews for critical projects with a focus on system-level tradeoffs and network scalability\n- Drive the design and implementation of “secure by default” network systems in collaboration with security teams\n- Act as a key stakeholder by engaging with customers and internal teams to understand business requirements and deliver innovative solutions\n\nRequirements:\n- Proven experience leading complex engineering efforts focused on network traffic management, network optimization, and cloud orchestration\n- Exceptional collaboration and communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to align stakeholders and lead cross-functional teams\n- A track record of contributing to long-term technical roadmaps and making thoughtful system-level tradeoffs\n- At least 8+ years of coding experience in Python, Java, or similar, with strong expertise in writing concurrent and distributed code\n- Extensive experience designing and building distributed systems, leveraging concurrency primitives, and optimizing network performance\n- Deep expertise in traffic and networking systems, with familiarity across adjacent infrastructure domains\n- Hands-on experience with cloud providers such as AWS, GCP, or Azure, and the ability to optimize cost, performance, and scalability\n\nCompensation: The estimated pay range for this role is $160,000 - $220,000. Additionally, this role is eligible to participate in Ambient's equity plan.