Principal Engineer – AI ML

Work Flexibility: Hybrid or Onsite Vocera, now part of Stryker, is looking for a **Principal Engineer – AI/ML** to help drive the technical direction of our AI-powered voice and speech platform. You will work closely with engineering teams to build intelligent healthcare solutions, including **real-time speech recognition, AI-powered interpretation, ambient documentation, and conversational voice experiences**. This is a hands-on technical leadership role focused on designing scalable AI solutions and guiding engineering teams through architecture and implementation decisions. **What You'll Do** * Lead the technical architecture for AI-powered voice and speech applications. * Evaluate and recommend AI models for different use cases such as speech recognition, transcription, translation, summarization, and conversational AI. * Design and build scalable backend services using **Java and Python**. * Work with Azure AI services, including **Azure Voice Live API**, Speech Services, and Azure OpenAI. * Design low-latency, real-time speech processing pipelines. * Collaborate with product, engineering, and AI teams to deliver production-ready AI solutions. * Drive technical decisions around model selection, performance, latency, scalability, and cost optimization. * Mentor engineers and promote engineering best practices across teams. **Required Qualifications** * Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related field. * 14+ years of software engineering experience. * Strong backend development experience in **Java**. * Working knowledge of **Python** for AI/ML integration and experimentation. * Experience building cloud-based applications on Microsoft Azure or a similar cloud platform. * Experience working with AI/ML services such as speech recognition, LLMs, or conversational AI. * Good understanding of REST APIs, distributed systems, and microservices architecture. * Strong problem-solving and technical leadership skills. **Preferred Qualifications** Experience with one or more of the following is a plus: * Azure Voice Live API * Azure Speech Services * Azure OpenAI * Real-time speech transcription * Conversational AI or voice assistants * Large Language Models (LLMs) * AI model evaluation and selection * Kubernetes and containerized applications * Healthcare or enterprise software development **What We're Looking For** We're looking for someone who enjoys solving real engineering problems using AI rather than researching AI models. The ideal candidate should be comfortable evaluating different AI models, understanding their trade-offs, integrating them into production systems, and helping engineering teams build scalable, reliable AI-powered applications. Travel Percentage: 10%