---
title: 'Principal AI Software Engineer, Product at brightwheel'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/principal-ai-software-engineer-product-brightwheel-united-states-9sna9yecg9g4'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Principal AI Software Engineer, Product at brightwheel

- **Company:** brightwheel
- **Location:** United States
- **Compensation:** $194k–$263k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-08-14
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/brightwheel/918b98e2-bf78-4cab-be21-8ca7d37fc6e3/application

**Skills:** Ruby on Rails, Sidekiq, PostgreSQL, Redis, React, TypeScript, Swift, Kotlin, Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon EKS, AWS, AWS Bedrock, LLMs, Orchestration frameworks, Agent frameworks, Model training, Fine-tuning, Classical machine learning, Natural language processing

> Brightwheel seeks a Principal Engineer, AI to define technical direction and build AI-powered capabilities that improve business outcomes for early education centers. The role involves owning end-to-end delivery, establishing paved highways for safe AI deployment, and mentoring senior engineers.

## Job description

## Our Mission and Opportunity

Early education is one of the most important determinants of childhood outcomes, a critical support for working families, and a $175B market that remains underserved by modern technology. Brightwheel is the largest, fastest growing, and most loved platform in early ed, trusted by millions of educators and families every day. We are a three-time Cloud 100 company https://www.forbes.com/lists/cloud100/a, backed by top investors including Addition, Bessemer, Emerson Collective, Lowercase Capital, Notable Capital, and Mark Cuban.

## Our Team

Our team is passionate, talented, and customer-focused. We embody our Leadership Principles https://mybrightwheel.com/about/ in our work and culture. We are a distributed team with remote employees across every US time zone, as well as select offices in the US and internationally.

## About the role

Our team is passionate, talented, and deeply customer-focused. We build the platform that thousands of early education programs rely on every day to run their business, serve families, and support children’s growth. As a vertical SaaS company, brightwheel already sits in the middle of all the key workflows in early education: enrollment, billing, staffing, classroom planning, and family communication. We are now extending that foundation into a system of action – where software not only records what happened, but also anticipates work, recommends next steps, and takes safe, automated action on behalf of school leaders, teachers, families, and our internal teams.

We’re looking for an AI-native software engineer to join our product engineering team. This is a builder role for someone who wants to solve real customer problems and help define how AI changes the product experience for early education. You will build customer-facing product experiences that help school administrators, teachers, and families save time, make better decisions, and run stronger early education programs. You will partner closely with product, design, and customer-facing teams to turn ambiguous customer problems into shipped software with measurable customer impact.

The best candidates do not wait for perfect requirements. They prototype quickly, validate assumptions with users or internal teams, define success metrics, and iterate in production. They use AI agents, coding tools, scripts, and automation to move faster, while raising the bar for quality, reliability, privacy, security, and customer trust.

## What you’ll do

- Own meaningful problems from discovery through launch, measurement, and iteration.
- Use AI to improve both how you build and what brightwheel can deliver.
- Prototype quickly, validate assumptions, and use working software to create clarity.
- Raise the bar for quality, reliability, security, privacy, observability, and execution.
- Build customer-facing workflows across enrollment, billing, classrooms, staffing, family communication, onboarding, or other core product areas.
- Partner with product, design, and customer-facing teams to turn ambiguous customer problems into shipped software with measurable impact.

You may be a good fit if you

- Have 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
- Have strong engineering fundamentals and can reason across systems, data, APIs, product surfaces, and infrastructure.
- Have owned production work from problem definition through launch and iteration.
- Use AI tools and agents as a real part of your engineering workflow, not as a novelty.
- Can explain how you have increased your own velocity without lowering your quality bar.
- Have examples of automating your own work, your team’s work, or broader company workflows.
- Are comfortable operating in ambiguity and turning unclear problems into shipped software.
- Communicate clearly and work well across functions.
- Care deeply about privacy, security, reliability, and customer trust.

Strong candidates may also have

- Experience shipping AI-powered products, workflows, or internal tools to production.
- Experience with retrieval, tool use, evaluation, monitoring, orchestration, or agent workflows.
- Experience in vertical SaaS, education, fintech, healthcare, CRM, ecommerce, or another operations-heavy domain.
- A portfolio of personal projects, internal tools, open-source work, writing, demos, or side projects that shows builder energy and taste.
- Experience building customer-facing product experiences with measurable adoption or outcome impact.
- Experience improving web or mobile outcomes through architecture, tooling, shared patterns, or production feedback.

Technology

- Backend: Ruby on Rails, Sidekiq
- Data: PostgreSQL on Amazon RDS, Redis, and event and analytics pipelines
- Frontend: React with TypeScript
- Mobile: Native iOS with Swift and Android with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose
- Cloud and Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes on Amazon EKS, GitHub Actions and FluxCD for CI/CD, and AWS services such as S3, CloudFront, CloudWatch, and SNS
- AI and Automation: AWS Bedrock and other hosted large language models, vector search, orchestration and agent frameworks, and modern AI coding tools like Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex

Brightwheel is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive work environment and is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

Protecting Our Applicants: Please be aware of recruiting scams impersonating Brightwheel. All legitimate communications come from @mybrightwheel.com http://mybrightwheel.com addresses, and we never ask for payment or sensitive personal data as part of our hiring process. If you suspect fraudulent contact, reach out to security@mybrightwheel.com. Thank you for helping us keep our applicant community safe.

## About brightwheel

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Brightwheel provides the #1 all-in-one childcare management platform that combines SaaS, payments, and a consumer‑like daily experience for early education programs.
- **Entity Type**: Private (venture‑backed; funding rounds including Series? Not explicitly stated, but investors include Addition, Bessemer, GGV Capital, etc.)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2015
- **Founders**: Not publicly listed on the provided sources; founders are likely Dave Vasen (CEO) and others (not confirmed in search results)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Early childhood education technology (EdTech / Childcare Management Software)
- **Target customers**: B2B – daycare centers, preschools, and early education administrators; B2C – parents and guardians of enrolled children.
- **Mission / purpose**: “High quality early education for every child.” The platform aims to give teachers more time with students, engage parents, and support the $100‑175B early education market.

## Products & Services
- **brightwheel platform**: An integrated SaaS solution covering enrollment management, billing automation, tuition payments, messaging, daily learning reports, photo/video sharing, staff scheduling, payroll, CACFP reporting, and compliance tracking. Available as a mobile app and web dashboard.
- **Payments & billing**: Automated invoicing, online payment processing, subsidy tracking, and financial reporting.
- **Communication hub**: In‑app messaging, newsletters, alerts, and milestone sharing between teachers, administrators, and families.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Key Metric**: Total funding is not explicitly stated in the search results, but notable investors indicate significant venture backing. Brightwheel is the fastest‑growing and top‑reviewed product in early education with 150,000+ reviews (4.9 rating).
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Addition, Bessemer Venture Partners, Emerson Collective, GGV Capital, Lowercase Capital, Mark Cuban.
- **Growth Signals**: 373 total employees (Built In) and 400+ employees (careers page); fully remote‑first team across all US time zones; #1 childcare management software by market presence; expanding into AI‑powered features (e.g., AI assistant for support).

## Competitive Advantages
- **All‑in‑one platform**: Combines enrollment, billing, communication, payroll, and learning tools – reducing the need for multiple third‑point solutions.
- **High customer trust**: 4.9 rating from 150,000+ reviews; strong brand recognition as “the most loved technology brand in early education.”
- **Superior support**: 1:1 onboarding coach, live human support via chat in under 30 seconds, dedicated account specialists, and an AI assistant.
- **Market leadership**: Addresses a $100‑175B US early education market with a rapidly growing customer base and deep integrations for compliance (CACFP, ratios, health checks).

## Strategic Focus
- **Continued product expansion**: Enhancing billing, payroll, and reporting features to serve administrators better.
- **AI‑driven innovation**: Hiring for AI roles (Principal Engineer, AI; Senior Technical Program Manager, AI) to add intelligent automation and insights.
- **Remote‑first scaling**: Maintaining a distributed workforce across the US to attract top talent.
- **Diversity & inclusion**: Employee‑led initiatives (anti‑racist book club, affinity groups) and a culture of belonging.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Mission‑driven, fast‑growth environment with a focus on continuous learning, ownership, and customer value. Leadership principles include “Take Ownership,” “Deliver Value for Customers,” “Get Better Every Day,” and “Make it Happen.”
- **Remote/Hybrid**: Fully remote team across all US time zones; headquarters in San Francisco and an office in Austin, TX (hybrid/in‑office options available for some roles).
- **Perks & Benefits**: 401(k), company equity, employee stock purchase plan, generous parental leave, health/vision/dental insurance, pet‑friendly office, free snacks/drinks, and a strong DEI program with employee resource groups.
- **Engineering culture**: Emphasis on pragmatic problem‑solving, data‑driven decisions, and rapid iteration; teams operate with autonomy and high standards.

## Sources
1. [mybrightwheel.com (Careers)](https://mybrightwheel.com/careers/)
2. [mybrightwheel.com (About)](https://mybrightwheel.com/about/)
3. [mybrightwheel.com (Product)](https://mybrightwheel.com/)
4. [Built In (brightwheel company profile)](https://builtin.com/company/brightwheel)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com (brightwheel jobs)](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/brightwheel)

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