Principal Engineer, AI

Have you ever had that green-light feeling? When you hit every green light and the day just feels like magic. CLEAR's mission is to create frictionless experiences where every day has that feeling. With more than 30+ million passionate members and hundreds of partners around the world, CLEAR’s identity platform is transforming the way people live, work, and travel. Whether it’s at the airport, stadium, or right on your phone, CLEAR connects you to the things that make you, you - unlocking easier, more secure, and more seamless experiences - making them all feel like magic.

As a Principal AI Engineer, you will shape the architecture and execution of CLEAR’s AI platform strategy, from infrastructure to applied intelligence. You’ll partner with Engineering, Product, Analytics, and Security to design and scale systems that embed AI into every member and partner interaction. We’re looking for a technical leader who can set the direction for AI adoption, drive platform scalability, and ensure responsible, trusted deployment of machine learning across CLEAR’s ecosystem.

What You Will Do:

• Define and scale CLEAR’s AI platform strategy: spanning data pipelines, ML lifecycle management, and intelligent applications.
• Lead engineering execution for AI/ML models (development, deployment, monitoring, retraining) with a focus on reliability, observability, and ethical AI practices.
• Architect personalization and recommendation engines that power mobile, concierge, and care journeys, driving loyalty and engagement.
• Build AI-assisted automation in member care and operational workflows, improving both customer experience and efficiency.
• Modernize analytics and intelligence systems to deliver predictive insights and partner-facing transparency in real time.
• Operationalize trust in AI by embedding privacy, compliance, and security into all platforms and workflows.
• Influence cross-functional stakeholders across the business, fostering a culture of technical rigor, collaboration, and innovation, advising C Suite executives, leaders, and individual contributors. 
• Track and optimize KPIs on AI adoption, model performance, scalability, and business impact.

What You’re Great At

• 12+ years in software engineering, with deep expertise in AI systems, ML platforms, and data infrastructure.
• Proven ability to scale AI pipelines (batch and streaming) and deliver production ML in high-throughput, low-latency environments.
• Strong technical background in cloud-native architectures (AWS or similar) and modern AI/ML stacks (Airflow, TensorFlow/PyTorch, MLflow, etc.).
• Experience leading AI strategy and platform adoption in enterprise-scale environments.
• Skilled at translating regulatory and compliance requirements into responsible AI practices.
• Track record of partnering closely with Product, Engineering, Analytics, and Security teams as well as business executives.
• Excellent communicator who can set a vision for AI, explain technical trade-offs, and influence executives, peers, and partners.
• Passionate about embedding AI into core products to deliver measurable impact for members and enterprise partners.

How You’Ll Be Rewarded:

At CLEAR, we help YOU move forward - because when you’re at your best, we’re at our best. You’ll work with talented team members motivated by our mission of making experiences safer and easier. Our offices are bright and energetic with an open concept and plenty of conference rooms and casual co-working spaces. We also offer catered lunches every day and have fully stocked kitchens. Outside of the office, we invest in your well-being and learning & development with stipends and reimbursement programs.

We offer holistic total rewards, including comprehensive healthcare plans, family-building benefits (fertility and adoption/surrogacy support), flexible time off, annual wellness stipend, free OneMedical memberships for you and your dependents, a CLEAR Plus membership, and a 401(k) retirement plan with employer match. The base salary range for this role is $250,000-$290,000, depending on levels of skills and experience.

The base salary range represents the low and high end of CLEAR’s salary range for this position. Salaries will vary depending on various factors which include, but are not limited to location, education, skills, experience and performance. The range listed is just one component of CLEAR’s total compensation package for employees and other rewards may include annual bonuses, commission, Restricted Stock Units.

CLEAR provides reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities or protected needs. Please let us know if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job or perform your job. Examples of reasonable accommodation include, but are not limited to, time off, extra breaks, making a change to the application process or work procedures, policy exceptions, providing documents in an alternative format, live captioning or using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.

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