Exciting opportunity has come up for a Principal AI Engineer to Lead the development and implementation of cutting-edge Generative AI solutions across multiple GenAI squads delivering exceptional customer and colleague experiences. This role will be pivotal in shaping our GenAI technology strategy, defining engineering standards, and driving reusable capabilities that accelerate innovation and delivery at scale.

You will operate at the intersection of deep technical leadership, architectural vision, and cross-squad coordination—enabling high-impact AI-driven solutions while maintaining engineering excellence and platform integrity.

• We’ve got excellent leaders providing strong perspectives on why we’re here
• Everyone is given the opportunity to learn, grow and achieve 
• Work in a collaborative and inclusive team environment 

In this Principal Engineer role, each day, you’ll go above and beyond to:

• Lead the design, development, and scaling of GenAI capabilities, frameworks, and services that can be leveraged across products and platforms.
• Establish and govern engineering standards to ensure high-quality, maintainable, and scalable AI code across squads.
• Define reusable architectural patterns and common components (e.g., prompt orchestration engines, evaluation tools, retrieval frameworks).
• Collaborate with product, data, and engineering leaders to translate business needs into scalable GenAI technical solutions.
• Contribute to and influence the technology strategy, investment decisions, and roadmap for AI and GenAI-enabled initiatives.
• Guide engineers and tech leads across squads to elevate AI maturity and engineering capability.
• Drive adoption of MLOps and GenAIOps practices to streamline experimentation, deployment, monitoring, and governance.
• Stay current with GenAI trends, open-source developments, and research, bringing innovative thinking into the organization.
• Ensure solutions are ethically sound, secure, and compliant with responsible AI standards and governance frameworks.

We’re looking for the best and brightest to deliver the best for our customers. You’ll need:

• Extensive experience in software/AI engineering, with significant exposure to production-grade ML/AI systems.
• Experience leading engineering efforts across multiple squads / engineers.
• Expertise in LLMs, embeddings, RAG, fine-tuning, and prompt engineering.
• Strong coding and architectural skills in Python and relevant ML/AI frameworks (e.g., LangChain, Hugging Face etc.).
• Experience designing and building shared services, reusable libraries, and APIs.
• Deep understanding of software engineering best practices, DevOps, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Exposure to knowledge graphs, vector databases, and retrieval-based architectures.
• Familiarity with responsible AI, bias detection, and governance practices.
• Ability to influence at all levels — from engineers to senior leadership.
• Experience working with business teams to understand business requirements and desired outputs (particularly non-technical business stakeholders)
• Passion for innovation, reusability, and delivering impact through AI.

A diverse and inclusive workplace works better for everyone

We know that our people make us who we are. That's why we have built a culture of equity and respect – where everyone feels valued and appreciated for being their authentic selves. In partnership with our multiple Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) we continue to foster an inclusive environment, where all NAB colleagues’ unique backgrounds and identities are understood, respected and celebrated. We are committed to providing an environment where you can work your way.

For details on the recruitment process, and accessibility, please visit https://www.nab.com.au/about-us/careers/apply-for-job. To discuss adjustment requirements, please contact the NAB Careers team, via nab.careers@nab.com.au (please reference job number) or visit our Careers page through the link above for other contact options.

Join NAB

If you think this role is the right fit for you, we would love to hear from you. Please note candidate screening and interviews may be conducted prior to the closing date of the job advert. Unsolicited CVs from agencies will not be accepted.