Principal Staff Engineer, AI Platform Research, Data Science (Remote)

$195K - $290K Remote Senior AI/ML Engineer

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Skills & Technologies

AwsDockerGcpKubernetesLangchainLlamaindexMlflowPrompt EngineeringPythonRag

About This Role

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As a global leader in cybersecurity, CrowdStrike protects the people, processes and technologies that drive modern organizations. Since 2011, our mission hasn’t changed — we’re here to stop breaches, and we’ve redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced AI\-native platform. We work on large scale distributed systems, processing almost 3 trillion events per day and this traffic is growing daily. Our customers span all industries, and they count on CrowdStrike to keep their businesses running, their communities safe and their lives moving forward. We're proud to work for a mission\-driven company leveraging AI to transform the way we work. CrowdStrikers drive their careers through flexibility and autonomy while also being expected to contribute to a culture of responsible AI adoption, experimentation, and innovation. We use an AI\-first mindset as a force multiplier to proactively and continuously accelerate execution, build expertise, uncover insights, and solve complex problems. We’re always looking to add talented CrowdStrikers to the team who have limitless passion, a relentless focus on innovation and a fanatical commitment to our customers, our community and each other. Ready to join a mission that matters? The future of cybersecurity starts with you.

About the Role:

-------------------

CrowdStrike is looking for a hands\-on Staff Data Engineer with deep expertise in Large Language Models (LLMs), Agents and AI platforms to join our growing Data Science Platform Engineering Team. You will be a key technical leader, responsible for designing, building, and deploying cutting\-edge data infrastructure that powers our next generation of AI\-driven security products. Given the rapid evolution of AI tooling and development standards, we seek a technical leader to stay at the forefront of research, optimizing these systems while driving the platform advancements that accelerate our research teams. This role requires significant hands\-on experience in LLM integration, agentic workflows, and agent harnessing to deliver high\-impact, scalable solutions. You will champion by hands on executing engineering excellence, focusing on shipping fast, writing elegant, high\-quality code, and actively mentoring and strengthening the team's technical knowledge and capabilities.

The scale of our systems and data are approaching Exabytes in size. Experience with extremely large\-scale systems, including DevSecOps patterns, practices, and standards are important for this work.

What You'll Do:

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  • Write code everyday. Architect, implement, and optimize data platforms and pipelines specifically designed to support LLMs, Neural Networks, Retrieval\-Augmented Generation (RAG), and sophisticated AI agentic systems at Exabyte scale.
  • Drive the adoption and deployment of agentic workflows and agent harnessing techniques to create autonomous, data\-driven security features.
  • Lead by example in hands coding highly scalable, fault\-tolerant, and cost\-effective data solutions, emphasizing rapid iteration and high\-quality deployment.
  • Write elegant, production\-ready code with a focus on performance, maintainability, and testing rigor, ensuring the ability to ship fast without compromising quality.
  • Provide technical leadership and deep expertise in data modeling, normalization, and semantic cataloging for AI/ML workloads.
  • Establish best practices for MLOps/DataOps surrounding LLMs, including monitoring, observability, and zero\-touch recovery mechanisms for AI services.
  • Actively mentor engineers, conducting technical workshops, leading design reviews, and strengthening the team's knowledge in cutting\-edge AI platform technologies.
  • Collaborate across the organization with Data Scientists, Product Managers, and other engineering teams to transform research prototypes into robust, production\-grade services.
  • Own the end\-to\-end lifecycle of critical data services: development, testing, deployment, and monitoring.

Tech Stack:

  • Languages: Expert\-level proficiency in at least one — Python, Go, Rust, or JVM technologies.
  • AI/ML: MLOps tools (MLflow, SageMaker, Vertex AI); agentic frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex).
  • Distributed Processing: Spark, Dask, or Flink.
  • Cloud: AWS, GCP, or OCI and related data services.
  • Containers \& Orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes.
  • Streaming: Kafka, Pulsar.
  • Data Warehousing \& Orchestration: Snowflake, BigQuery, Airflow, Kubeflow.

What You'll Need:

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  • Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, Data Engineering, or a related STEM field, or equivalent practical experience.
  • 5\+ years of progressive experience in Data Engineering/Platform Engineering, with at least 3 years focused on architecting and building platforms for AI/ML or Data Science at massive scale.
  • Demonstrable hands\-on experience in LLM engineering (fine\-tuning, prompt engineering, deployment), RAG, and developing agentic workflows.
  • Proven track record of designing and delivering large\-scale distributed systems (sharding, partitioning, concurrency).
  • Exceptional ability to write clean, elegant, performant, and well\-tested code, coupled with a proactive mindset for delivering results quickly.
  • Ability to leverage AI aided secure code development
  • A thorough understanding of engineering practices, including effective peer code reviews, resilient architecture design, and comprehensive testing paradigms.
  • Prior experience in a Staff level engineering role, demonstrating technical leadership and mentorship capabilities.
  • Proven experience utilizing AI technologies to enhance decision\-making, streamline workflows and processes, improve efficiency and drive business outcomes.

Bonus Points:

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  • Prior experience in the cybersecurity, intelligence, or high\-compliance industries.
  • Contributions to open\-source projects related to data or AI/ML.

\#LI\-Remote

\#LI\-RC1

Benefits of Working at CrowdStrike:

  • Market leader in compensation and equity awards
  • Comprehensive physical and mental wellness programs
  • Competitive vacation and holidays for recharge
  • Paid parental and adoption leaves
  • Professional development opportunities for all employees regardless of level or role
  • Employee Networks, geographic neighborhood groups, and volunteer opportunities to build connections
  • Vibrant office culture with world class amenities
  • Great Place to Work Certified™ across the globe

CrowdStrike is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering a culture of belonging where everyone is valued for who they are and empowered to succeed. We support veterans and individuals with disabilities through our affirmative action program.

CrowdStrike is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all employees and applicants for employment. The Company does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, creed, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy or pregnancy\-related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status, veteran status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical disability (including HIV and AIDS), mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, membership or activity in a local human rights commission, status with regard to public assistance, or any other characteristic protected by law. We base all employment decisions\-including recruitment, selection, training, compensation, benefits, discipline, promotions, transfers, lay\-offs, return from lay\-off, terminations and social/recreational programs\-on valid job requirements.

If you need assistance accessing or reviewing the information on this website or need help submitting an application for employment or requesting an accommodation, please contact us at [email protected] for further assistance.

Find out more about your rights as an applicant.

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Right to Work

CrowdStrike, Inc. is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. Placement within the pay range is dependent on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications, job level, supervisory status, and location. The base salary range for this position for all U.S. candidates is $195,000 \- $290,000 per year, with eligibility for bonuses, equity grants and a comprehensive benefits package that includes health insurance, 401k and paid time off.

For detailed information about the U.S. benefits package, please click here.

Expected Close Date of Job Posting is:10\-07\-2026

Salary Context

This $195K-$290K range is above the 75th percentile for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $175K across 2162 roles with salary data).

View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →

Role Details

Company CrowdStrike
Title Principal Staff Engineer, AI Platform Research, Data Science (Remote)
Location Remote, US
Category AI/ML Engineer
Experience Senior
Salary $195K - $290K
Remote Yes

About This Role

AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.

Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.

Across the 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 70% of the market. At CrowdStrike, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

Skills Required

Aws (28% of roles) Docker (10% of roles) Gcp (15% of roles) Kubernetes (13% of roles) Langchain (9% of roles) Llamaindex (3% of roles) Mlflow (4% of roles) Prompt Engineering (14% of roles) Python (52% of roles) Rag (21% of roles)

Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.

Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.

Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.

Compensation Benchmarks

AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $214,900 based on 6,420 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($242K) sits 13% above the category median. Disclosed range: $195K to $290K.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($287,500) and Research Engineer ($272,100). By seniority level: Entry: $110,000; Mid: $194,400; Senior: $227,400; Director: $274,554; VP: $241,000.

CrowdStrike AI Hiring

CrowdStrike has 13 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, Data Scientist, Research Scientist. Positions span Sunnyvale, CA, US, Remote, US. Compensation range: $180K - $350K.

Remote Work Context

Remote AI roles pay a median of $180,000 across 1,196 positions. About 15% of all AI roles offer remote work.

Career Path

Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.

From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.

The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.

What to Expect in Interviews

Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.

When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 4,317 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 138 entry-level, 2,071 mid-level, 1,655 senior, and 453 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (635 positions). The remaining 3,657 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($287,500 median, 34 roles); Research Engineer ($272,100 median, 227 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($244,000 median, 23 roles).

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 4,317 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (3,004), Data Scientist (345), AI Software Engineer (309). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.

The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (138) are outnumbered by mid-level (2,071) and senior (1,655) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 453 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (635 positions), with 3,657 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.

AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $215,000. Top-quartile roles start at $266,300, and the 90th percentile reaches $320,790. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.

Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $287,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $145,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.

The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (2,249 postings), Aws (1,224 postings), Azure (938 postings), Rag (915 postings), Gcp (660 postings), Pytorch (640 postings), Prompt Engineering (624 postings), Kubernetes (559 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Based on 6,420 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI/ML Engineer positions is $214,900. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
About 15% of the 4,317 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
CrowdStrike is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from AI/ML Engineer positions include ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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