Principal Python Engineer

Ambient (Headquarters: Remote)

Python Distributed Systems AI ML LLM AI Infrastructure Blockchain L1 Proof of Work Cryptocurrency APIs MLOps AI Engineer Back End Engineer Staff Engineer

Ambient is looking for a Principal Python Engineer to help build the infrastructure supporting our novel AI-powered Proof of Work L1 blockchain. You will be instrumental in developing the systems that manage, orchestrate, and optimize the AI workloads (inference, fine-tuning, training) running across our decentralized network, leveraging your expertise in Python and large distributed systems.

Company Overview: Ambient is creating a cryptocurrency network where AI computation itself forms the basis of the proof of work. We're building an SVM-compatible L1 (a Solana fork) that replaces Proof of Stake with Proof of Work based on LLM tasks, aiming for Bitcoin-like economics coupled with AI productivity. Our network supports a single, massive (>600B parameter) open-source LLM and uses a hyper-optimized Proof of Logits (PoL) consensus.

Role & Responsibilities:
- Design, develop, and maintain robust and scalable Python-based systems for managing distributed AI tasks (inference, fine-tuning, training orchestration).
- Build tooling and infrastructure to support the deployment, monitoring, and management of our large language model across network nodes.
- Architect and implement APIs and services that interact with both the blockchain core and AI components.
- Optimize Python code for performance and efficiency in a distributed environment.
- Collaborate closely with AI/ML researchers and Rust engineers to ensure seamless integration and operation of the overall system.
- Contribute to system design, participate in code reviews, and mentor other engineers.
- Work on challenges related to distributed data handling, task scheduling, and results verification in a decentralized setting.

Technical Skills Required:
- Extensive experience in Python development, especially for building large-scale backend systems and infrastructure.
- Strong understanding of distributed systems concepts and architectures.
- Experience with AI/ML infrastructure, frameworks (like PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX), and MLOps is a significant plus.
- Familiarity with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and cloud platforms is beneficial, though our system is decentralized.
- Experience with API design and development (e.g., FastAPI, gRPC).
- Comfortable working in a fast-paced startup environment on cutting-edge technology.

Ideal Candidate:
- Proven experience architecting and building complex, scalable backend or infrastructure systems using Python.
- Interest or experience in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and decentralized technologies.
- Experience working with large datasets and computationally intensive workloads.
- Passionate about building the infrastructure to power the future of AI and decentralized networks.