IT Senior Principal

This position within the AI Center of Enablement represents the most distinguished technical role within The Cigna Group, operating at the intersection of cutting-edge research, enterprise-scale engineering, and business strategy to shape the future of AI technology both within the enterprise and across the broader healthcare industry. The AI Engineering Senior Principal transcends traditional engineering leadership to define the organization's AI capabilities for the next decade, making decisions that establish the technical identity of Cigna's AI capabilities in the broader industry landscape. This role establishes the 10 year vision for AI engineering capabilities anticipating multiple technology paradigm shifts, architects next-generation AI platforms that enable capabilities not yet imagined by the business, identifies breakthrough AI research with transformational business potential months before mainstream awareness, and drives cultural transformation in how the organization approaches AI development and deployment. The Senior Principal is recognized as a preeminent expert in AI engineering, influencing not only internal technical direction but contributing to the evolution of the field itself through research publications, industry standards participation, and thought leadership, ultimately positioning The Cigna Group as a leader in healthcare AI innovation while improving the cost, quality and access to healthcare for Cigna's clients and customers.

As an AI Engineering Senior Principal, you will engage at the highest organizational levels including C-suite executives and board members, driving alignment between technical strategy and business strategy with multi-year impact. You will architect technical foundations that remain relevant through multiple waves of AI innovation, establish research partnerships with leading universities and AI companies, drive adoption of breakthrough technologies providing sustained competitive advantage, and influence AI product roadmaps of major vendors through strategic partnerships. This role requires the highest levels of influence within the business, technology and architecture organizations equivalent to C-suite executives, extensive business and domain knowledge across healthcare operations, innovative problem-solving skills operating years ahead of mainstream AI adoption, and the ability to marry business and technology into a cohesive value-oriented strategy that positions the organization as an industry leader in AI capabilities.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES :

Define the 10 year vision for AI engineering capabilities, anticipating multiple technology paradigm shifts in healthcare AI

Shape the organization's fundamental approach to AI, establishing principles that outlast specific technologies

Drive decisions on which emerging AI capabilities become core organizational competencies versus external partnerships

Establish the technical identity of the organization's AI capabilities in the broader healthcare and technology industry landscape

Serve as technical counsel to C-suite executives and board members on AI strategy, risk, and opportunity

Influence enterprise business strategy by identifying transformational applications of AI technology to healthcare delivery, operations, and member experience

Lead technical due diligence for major strategic decisions including M&A, partnerships, and technology investments

Architect next-generation AI platforms that enable healthcare capabilities not yet imagined by the business

Design technical foundations using Python, AWS, Terraform, and emerging technologies that remain relevant through multiple waves of AI innovation

Create abstractions and frameworks that accelerate development velocity by 100x while maintaining quality, safety, and HIPAA compliance

Build AI infrastructure that scales from proof-of-concept to enterprise production across thousands of healthcare applications

Design systems that seamlessly integrate future AI modalities including multimodal models, embodied AI, and neuromorphic computing

Create platforms that democratize AI capabilities across the organization while maintaining governance and control

Identify breakthrough AI research with transformational business potential months before mainstream awareness

Design experiments to validate feasibility of emerging techniques at enterprise scale

Build pathways to operationalize research concepts into production systems serving millions of healthcare members

Develop novel AI engineering approaches that combine multiple research breakthroughs in unique ways

Create proprietary AI capabilities that provide sustained competitive advantage in healthcare markets

Establish research partnerships with leading universities, labs, and AI companies (OpenAI, Anthropic, academic institutions)

Publish research-level technical papers that advance the state of AI engineering practice in healthcare

File patents on novel AI architectures, algorithms, and systems

Lead open-source initiatives that influence how the industry builds AI systems

Present keynote addresses at premier AI and engineering conferences

Serve on technical advisory boards for AI startups, research institutions, and standards bodies

Contribute to AI safety, ethics, and governance standards at industry and regulatory levels

Build relationships with AI research leaders and influence direction of AI technology evolution

Drive cultural transformation in how the organization approaches AI development and deployment

Establish engineering excellence standards that elevate technical capabilities across hundreds of engineers

Create technical career frameworks and mentorship programs that develop future AI engineering leaders

Build mechanisms for rapid technology adoption and continuous organizational learning

Lead initiatives to modernize legacy technical debt and establish modern AI engineering practices using GitHub, containerization, infrastructure-as-code, and cloud-native architectures

Define technical standards, patterns, and practices that govern AI development across the organization

Chair enterprise architecture review boards for the most critical AI initiatives

Make final technical decisions on contentious issues with organization-wide implications

Establish quality gates and technical controls that balance innovation velocity with risk management

Develop compliance frameworks that satisfy healthcare regulatory requirements (HIPAA, FDA) while enabling innovation

Cultivate relationships with AI model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral) to influence product roadmaps

Engage with cloud providers (AWS) to shape AI infrastructure offerings

Build partnerships with AI startups to gain early access to breakthrough technologies

Participate in industry consortiums defining AI standards and best practices

Represent the organization in regulatory discussions about AI policy and governance in healthcare

Own availability, cost, and performance of AI infrastructure processing billions of requests annually

Design resilient systems that maintain service through model provider outages, API changes, and infrastructure failures

Establish automated evaluation frameworks that continuously monitor quality across hundreds of models and applications

Create observability platforms using Langsmith and custom tools providing unprecedented visibility into AI system behavior and business impact

Implement cost optimization strategies that reduce infrastructure spend by millions annually while improving performance

Design security architectures that protect against sophisticated adversarial attacks and data exfiltration

Drive programs, initiatives and projects up and down the organizational hierarchy and support RFPs and client presentations by providing business-facing architectural input and ensuring enterprise mindset is present at the highest strategic levels

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS :

Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related technical field required

15+ years of software engineering experience with at least 8 years building production AI / ML systems at massive scale

Recognized industry expert in AI engineering with speaking engagements, publications, or major open-source contributions

Deep experience architecting AI platforms supporting thousands of engineers or millions of end users

Comprehensive expertise across the entire AI stack from model training to production deployment

Mastery of multiple programming languages, frameworks, and technology stacks with ability to evaluate emerging technologies

Expert understanding of LLM architectures with knowledge extending to model training, fine-tuning, and optimization

Deep expertise in advanced AI techniques including multimodal models, agentic systems, and emerging paradigms

Comprehensive knowledge of distributed systems, cloud architecture (AWS), and platform engineering at hyperscale

Deep understanding of transformer architectures, attention mechanisms, and future directions in neural network research

Expertise in model training including distributed training, RLHF, constitutional AI, and alignment techniques

Advanced knowledge of inference optimization including quantization, distillation, speculative decoding, and hardware acceleration

Comprehensive understanding of AI safety, alignment, interpretability, and robustness

Expertise in AI evaluation methodologies, benchmark design, and quality assurance frameworks

Deep knowledge of AI ethics, fairness, bias detection, and responsible AI practices particularly in healthcare contexts

Understanding of healthcare regulatory landscape (HIPAA, FDA) and ability to anticipate future AI governance requirements

Proven track record of defining technical strategy that shaped organizational capabilities for years

History of leading transformational initiatives affecting thousands of people and millions of dollars in value

Demonstrated ability to influence technical decisions at the highest organizational levels

Extensive experience mentoring senior technical leaders and developing organizational talent

Published research, patents, or major open-source contributions recognized by the broader industry

Speaking engagements at premier conferences with recognition as a thought leader

External recognition through awards, advisory positions, or industry influence

Track record of making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information in rapidly evolving domains

Deep understanding of how technology enables business strategy and competitive advantage in healthcare

Ability to translate technical capabilities into business value and communicate to non-technical executives

Experience participating in board-level discussions and strategic planning

Understanding of organizational dynamics and change management at scale

Capability to assess market dynamics, competitive positioning, and technology trends

Skill in building business cases for multi-million dollar technology investments

Strong leadership, collaboration, and negotiation skills at the executive level; able to lead by influence and build consensus among C-suite peers

Knowledge of IT strategic planning and capability development; experience implementing technology strategy and roadmaps at enterprise scale

Deep understanding of AI and Generative AI technology frameworks and tools, and common patterns and best practices with their applications to healthcare business operations

Self-directed and execution focused with a "get things done" attitude at the highest strategic levels

Comfortable with ambiguity and willing to take principled bets; able to think outside the box and challenge conventional wisdom regarding technology refresh and hype

Able to process high volumes of complex information; synthesize key themes, and recommend paths forward to executive leadership

Ability to communicate complex technical concepts to senior executives, board members, and external stakeholders

Demonstrated continuous improvement and continuous learning mindset

Ability to foster a culture of openness, transparency, and inclusion across large organizations

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS :

Masters or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field with significant research contributions

Experience as CTO, Chief Architect, or equivalent technical executive at a technology company

Published papers at top-tier AI conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, CVPR)

Significant contributions to influential open-source AI projects with large user bases

Patents in AI / ML with demonstrated impact

Experience at leading AI research labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta AI)

Technical advisory board positions at AI startups or research institutions

Industry recognition through awards, fellowships, or distinguished engineer programs

Experience with AI regulatory engagement or policy development

Track record of identifying and investing in breakthrough AI companies or technologies

Experience in the Healthcare industry, particularly with exposure to benefits configuration, provider network management, claims adjudication and payment processing

Experience with common Healthcare data / transaction formats and standards such as HL7, FHIR, EDI, ICD, CPT

Experience working with Cloud and hybrid enterprise workloads at massive scale

Deep practitioner of Agile and Lean Start-Up methodologies

Comprehensive knowledge of enterprise architecture frameworks, tools, and processes

If you will be working at home occasionally or permanently, the internet connection must be obtained through a cable broadband or fiber optic internet service provider with speeds of at least 10Mbps download / 5Mbps upload.

For this position, we anticipate offering an annual salary of 171,400 - 285,600 USD / yearly, depending on relevant factors, including experience and geographic location.

This role is also anticipated to be eligible to participate in an annual bonus and long term incentive plan.

We want you to be healthy, balanced, and feel secure. That's why you'll enjoy a comprehensive range of benefits, with a focus on supporting your whole health. Starting on day one of your employment, you'll be offered several health-related benefits including medical, vision, dental, and well-being and behavioral health programs. We also offer 401(k) with company match, company paid life insurance, tuition reimbursement, a minimum of 18 days of paid time off per year and paid holidays. For more details on our employee benefits programs, visit Life at Cigna Group .

About The Cigna Group

Doing something meaningful starts with a simple decision, a commitment to changing lives. At The Cigna Group, we're dedicated to improving the health and vitality of those we serve. Through our divisions Cigna Healthcare and Evernorth Health Services, we are committed to enhancing the lives of our clients, customers and patients. Join us in driving growth and improving lives.

Qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, age, disability, sex, childbirth (including pregnancy) or related medical conditions including but not limited to lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, religion, national origin, ancestry, marital or familial status, genetic information, status with regard to public assistance, citizenship status or any other characteristic protected by applicable equal employment opportunity laws.

If you require reasonable accommodation in completing the online application process, please email : SeeYourself@cigna.com for support. Do not email SeeYourself@cigna.com for an update on your application or to provide your resume as you will not receive a response.

The Cigna Group has a tobacco-free policy and reserves the right not to hire tobacco / nicotine users in states where that is legally permissible. Candidates in such states who use tobacco / nicotine will not be considered for employment unless they enter a qualifying smoking cessation program prior to the start of their employment. These states include : Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Washington State.

Qualified applicants with criminal histories will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with all federal, state and local ordinances.