---
title: 'Principal AI Engineer (LATAM Remote) at UP.Labs'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/principal-ai-engineer-latam-remote-up-labs-remote-d3z9w347tspn'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Principal AI Engineer (LATAM Remote) at UP.Labs

- **Company:** UP.Labs
- **Location:** Remote
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-07-23
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://jobs.gem.com/up-labs/am9icG9zdDoC14uY6L78t19YtClFs6HA

## Job description

## Overview

UP.Labs is a dynamic venture studio dedicated to building innovative startup companies from the ground up. Our team thrives on solving complex problems, driving technological advancements, and creating impactful digital products. We're seeking a highly skilled professional to join our growing team and contribute to our mission of launching the next wave of successful startups.

Technical Challenge We're building an agentic system as the core delivery mechanism for one of our ventures, and we're looking for a production agent-systems engineer who will own and grow the agentic function end-to-end — not a notebook builder or an ML researcher. You'll design the architecture for agents across the business, ground them in a complex proprietary domain through strong context and retrieval engineering, and build systems that take real action for real users, not just chatbots.

## Responsibilities

- Own and grow the agentic function end-to-end: set architecture across internal (data-engineering & data-science agents) and external (customer/partner-facing agents, MCP servers) surfaces, make build-vs-buy calls, and grow a team under you as we scale.
- Design, build, and deploy production LLM agents that take consequential action (write-back, execute changes) with human-in-the-loop controls — including tool interfaces (MCP, function calling), tiered tool access, approval gates, and rollback.
- Build and maintain eval harnesses for agentic systems — offline and online evaluation, regression testing for non-determinism, guardrails, and observability/tracing.
- Own context and retrieval engineering: go beyond naive chunking to build high-quality retrieval, context assembly, and grounding in proprietary domain data to reduce hallucination.
- Implement graph-based knowledge and retrieval systems (GraphRAG, property graphs, ontology/semantic layers) to ground agents in a complex, structured domain.
- Partner with applied science and the broader data/ML function on pipelines, embeddings, and vector stores where relevant, without owning ML model training.
- Communicate agent architecture, trade-offs, and roadmap to execs and investors; act as a player-coach who writes production code today while owning the function's direction and hiring as the team grows.

Required Skills

- 5+ years shipping production software; strong full-stack/backend engineering (Python core, TS/Node or Go a plus), including production APIs, data models, testing, and CI.
- Proven track record building and shipping LLM agents to production with real users — multi-step, tool-calling, stateful, with orchestration (LangGraph or equivalent) — and the ability to explain the control loop, not just the framework used.
- Experience building eval harnesses for agentic systems (e.g. MLflow, LangSmith, or custom) with fluency in determinism, drift, and guardrails.
- Experience owning a retrieval system in production, including chunking vs. structured retrieval trade-offs and evaluating retrieval quality.
- Experience shipping agents that take consequential, real-world action, with a clear point of view on approval/guardrail/rollback architecture (bonus: an incident where the agent did the wrong thing, and how it was handled).
- Track record leading an agentic initiative or team end-to-end — from architecture to production — including communicating agent systems to both execs and investors.

## Preferred Skills

- Experience shipping graph-backed retrieval and explaining why graphs outperform flat vectors for structured domains (GraphRAG, knowledge graphs, ontologies, property graphs, triple stores).
- Experience fine-tuning or distilling an open-source model (LoRA/QLoRA) with measured gains, or strong context/prompt optimization as a substitute.
- Experience serving/operating open-source models (Llama, Qwen, Mistral) via Databricks, vLLM, or similar, with a point of view on self-host vs. hosted-API cost/latency trade-offs.

UP.Labs Summary We build high-growth technology startups that enable faster, cleaner, and safer movement of people and goods. Our vision is to transform the moving world by pairing leading corporations and entrepreneurs with a proven methodology for launching and scaling software and hardware companies. We work with corporate investors over a multi-year period to launch a portfolio of mobility-focused ventures. Our team is dedicated to the first year of a new venture's life cycle, from ideation to minimum viable product build (and beyond) to recruiting and hiring the full-time team who will scale the business.

Location: Remote

## About UP.Labs

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: UP.Labs is a venture builder that partners with leading enterprises like Porsche, Alaska Airlines, and J.B. Hunt to co-create vertical AI startups that solve complex operational challenges in physical industries.
- **Entity Type**: Private (venture builder/venture lab)
- **Headquarters**: Santa Monica, California, USA (Hangar 7, 3100 Donald Douglas Loop N, Santa Monica, CA 90405)
- **Founded**: Not publicly disclosed, but has been active since at least 2024
- **Founders**: Not publicly disclosed as a single founder; the entity operates as a venture lab under the UP.Partners umbrella

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Venture building / Corporate venture foundry, focused on transportation, mobility, logistics, aviation, manufacturing, and energy
- Target customers: Large enterprises in physical industries (e.g., Porsche, Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, Wabash National)
- Mission: To transform physical industry by building vertical AI startups that unlock massive operational gains and deliver real enterprise value — described as "the shortest road to a faster, cleaner, safer, and more accessible future"

## Products & Services
UP.Labs does not sell a single product; instead, it launches and incubates startups. Recent and notable portfolio ventures include:

- **AutoUnify**: A developer platform aiming to solve the automotive industry data divide (launched with Porsche, described as "the Plaid of automotive retail") [techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/13/up-labs-porsches-newest-startup-wants-to-be-the-plaid-of-automotive-retail/)
- **Odysee**: An AI-enabled startup focused on schedule optimization for airlines (launched with Alaska Airlines) [talkbusiness.net](https://talkbusiness.net/2024/11/04/leaders-highlight-programs-to-help-startups-boost-innovation/)
- **Stealth AI Manufacturing Planning Startup**: Currently being built with Wabash National to modernize transportation manufacturing with AI-powered tools [morningstar.com](https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/202504221000/wabash-and-up-labs-to-modernize-transportation-manufacturing-with-ai-powered-tools)
- **Stealth AI Freight Operations Startup**: Being built with J.B. Hunt to create logistics startups [talkbusiness.net](https://talkbusiness.net/2024/11/04/leaders-highlight-programs-to-help-startups-boost-innovation/)
- **Stealth AI Industrial Commerce Startup**: Currently in development

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private entity)
- **Key Metric**: 72 employees as of mid-2025, with 27% year-over-year headcount growth [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/up-labs)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Porsche, Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, Wabash National (corporate partners); operates with UP.Ventures as the capital arm
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - 27% YoY headcount growth (+20 people)
  - 2.5% monthly LinkedIn follower growth, 31.8% yearly
  - Active job postings up 200% monthly and 350% quarterly
  - 8 industry-specific venture labs operating across Los Angeles and Silicon Valley
  - Workforce distributed across 9 countries (US, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, Spain, Philippines, UK, Chile)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Unique venture model**: UP.Labs doesn't just invest — it co-creates startups with enterprise partners who are also the first customers, ensuring immediate market fit and a built-in acquisition path
- **Enterprise access**: Partners like Porsche, Alaska Airlines, and J.B. Hunt provide real-world operational problems, data, and distribution channels
- **Vertical AI focus**: Purpose-built AI solutions for physical industries (logistics, manufacturing, aviation, energy) — a space with high barriers to entry and massive operational impact
- **Talent density**: Attracts proven entrepreneurs, product leaders, and technologists; alumni go to top firms like McKinsey, BCG, Amazon, and Stanford GSB
- **Proven exit model**: Corporate partners acquire matured startups, creating a clear liquidity path

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale the venture lab model**: Expanding from 8 labs across two hubs (LA and Silicon Valley) into more industries and geographies
- **Deepen enterprise partnerships**: Working with the world's leading organizations to compound innovation
- **Build vertical AI startups**: Focus on agentic AI, computer vision, and data intelligence for physical operations
- **Global talent expansion**: Active hiring across LATAM (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay) for senior engineering roles, with a focus on building remote-first teams
- **Recent hires**: Appointed elite founders to lead the next wave of enterprise AI startups (announced August 2025) [morningstar.com](https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/202508211000/meet-the-builders-up-labs-appoints-elite-founders-to-lead-its-next-wave-of-enterprise-ai-startups)

## Why Work Here
- **Impact at scale**: Engineers work on AI-native startups solving real problems in logistics, aviation, manufacturing, and energy — not just chatbots or CRUD apps
- **Remote-first culture**: Many roles are fully remote, especially for LATAM-based engineers (no relocation required)
- **Global, distributed team**: Workforce spans 9 countries; strong presence in LATAM (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay) with dedicated LATAM remote roles
- **Senior-level focus**: Roles are described as "not support roles" but the technical layer behind AI-native companies; 100% retention reported for the initial remote LATAM team [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/up-labs)
- **Compensation**: USD-denominated salaries for LATAM roles, plus paid time off, hardware setup, and career development paths
- **Engineering culture**: Emphasis on "the best engineering problems in the US right now are inside physical industries" — appeals to builders who want hard technical challenges
- **Hybrid options**: Some roles in Santa Monica (HQ) offer hybrid flexibility; roles like Portfolio Platform Lead and Head of Engineering are hybrid in LA
- **Growth trajectory**: 27% YoY headcount growth, active hiring across engineering, data science, AI/ML, and business roles

## Sources
1. [uplabs.com](https://uplabs.com/subscribe)
2. [jobs.gem.com/up-labs](https://jobs.gem.com/up-labs)
3. [linkedin.com/company/up-labs](https://linkedin.com/company/up-labs)
4. [careers.up.partners](https://careers.up.partners/jobs/up-labs?jobTypes=Engineer)
5. [techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/13/up-labs-porsches-newest-startup-wants-to-be-the-plaid-of-automotive-retail/)
6. [talkbusiness.net](https://talkbusiness.net/2024/11/04/leaders-highlight-programs-to-help-startups-boost-innovation/)
7. [morningstar.com](https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/202508211000/meet-the-builders-up-labs-appoints-elite-founders-to-lead-its-next-wave-of-enterprise-ai-startups)
8. [morningstar.com](https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/202504221000/wabash-and-up-labs-to-modernize-transportation-manufacturing-with-ai-powered-tools)

## Other roles at UP.Labs

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- [HR Generalist (Part-Time)](https://feeny.ai/job/hr-generalist-part-time-up-labs-los-angeles-hhvpw26drf37) — Los Angeles, CA
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- [Head of Engineering - Stealth AI Industrial Commerce Startup](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-engineering-stealth-ai-industrial-commerce-startup-up-labs-remote-fs0xxqk16dwa)