Principal AI Engineer

The Owners Forum is a member-based community of leading international family enterprises represented by decision-makers of their owning families. Around eight times a year, our members come together for forums and member-hosted meetings in international business hubs such as Berlin, London, New York, Paris, Rome, Silicon Valley, Singapore or Tokyo.

About the Role
We are looking for a Founding AI Engineer to build our AI capability from the ground up and to define how it is governed. As our first and defining AI hire, you operate as the definitive technical authority: full ownership, direct partnership with leadership, and the autonomy to set the strategy, architecture, and standards yourself.
You will architect and ship production LLM and agentic systems that turn our data into decisions and, in parallel, author the AI governance framework that keeps those systems safe, compliant, and discreet for a membership that expects absolute confidentiality. This is a rare greenfield mandate for a Staff/Principal-level
engineer who wants to build, not advise.

Why This Is a Founding Role
Founding scope. You define and own the AI function end to end — no existing team to manage, no legacy to inherit.
Full autonomy & technical authority. You set the technical direction, architecture, and standards, and make the build-vs-buy and platform decisions yourself.
Direct executive partnership. You work directly with leadership, translating technology into business decisions — short paths, minimal bureaucracy.
Governance as the business model. For an exclusive network of high-net-worth families, governance isn't overhead — it is the product. You author it from zero.

What You’ll Own
Build & Architecture
End-to-end delivery. Design, build, and ship production LLM/RAG and agentic systems that solve real operational problems, from prototype through stable production operations.
Technical direction. Own the architecture and set the engineering standards; ensure solutions are secure, scalable, and maintainable well beyond launch.
Full-stack ownership. Comfortable owning the entire stack — LLM orchestration, backend, data, and integrations — to get products off the ground on your own.
Expert AI/ML tooling. Deep, hands-on command of LLMs, RAG, agents, and orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI).
Reliability & evaluation. Establish evals, monitoring, and QA so deployed systems are measurably reliable, not just functional on launch day.
Build vs. buy & roadmap. Evaluate and select models, tools, and platforms on business need, cost, risk, and maintainability; identify, assess, and prioritise new use cases and sequence the roadmap.

AI Governance & Compliance
Author the framework. Stand up the organisation-wide AI governance framework from the ground up — policies, risk classification, approval workflows, and documentation standards.
Model & data transparency. Create transparent documentation of model lineage, training-data origins, and algorithmic decision-making, with full auditability.
Regulatory ownership. Ensure all AI initiatives comply with GDPR, the EU AI Act, and local standards, in partnership with the data protection officer.
Salesforce CRM. Redesign and optimise the CRM so relevant data is accurately captured and accessible for matchmaking and due-diligence.
Risk translation & delivery. Turn complex technical architectures into clear risk and decision pictures for legal, operations, and leadership; support the Growth & Matchmaking team and knowledge-sharing.

What You Bring
Required
Seniority & production depth. Extensive experience (typically 8+ years) in software / ML / AI engineering, including several years of deep, hands-on production ownership of LLM / agentic systems at meaningful scale.
Technical authority. A track record of setting technical direction, architecture, and standards — operating as the definitive technical voice, not one contributor among many.
Elite hands-on engineering. You architect and build production AI agents, RAG, fine-tuning, and reasoning/orchestration workflows yourself — not just advise on them — with rigorous evaluation and reliability practices.
Programming & core tech. Expert in Python, with a strong command of at least one of Java, TypeScript, or Go; extensive hands-on experience with REST APIs and databases.
Governance builder. Demonstrated experience building (not just consuming) AI governance, risk, or compliance frameworks — GDPR / EU AI Act — in a corporate or regulated environment.
Executive translation. Comfortable operating autonomously with direct executive visibility, translating technical nuance into risk and decision pictures for non-technical leadership.
A collaborative mindset with a strong desire to share knowledge, insights, and best practices.
Very good written and verbal English; German is a plus.

Nice to Have
Experience integrating AI with Salesforce or a similar enterprise CRM / ERP platform.
Solid knowledge of cloud technologies (AWS or Azure).
Familiarity with data science, workflow automation, or frontend development.

What We Offer
A rare founding mandate. Full ownership, autonomy, and direct access to leadership from day one.
Compensation: A senior-level, market-adapted and highly competitive package.
Flexibility: A modern office in Berlin available, but this can be a fully remote role with flexible working hours.
Work Environment: A dynamic, collaborative, and hands-on work environment with short communication paths and an open feedback culture.
Access to modern tools and technology (MacBook, display, etc.).
Permanent employment contract with 30 days of vacation.