Babbel
Babbel
501 – 1,000 Employees
ConsultingMarketingTravel
Babbel is a language-learning technology company founded in 2007, offering a subscription-based app and web platform for developing practical speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. Its learning experience combines short, tailored lessons with pronunciation feedback, interactive dialogues, placement tests, podcasts, and videos created by language experts. Babbel supports self-paced study with progress tracking and serves consumers through mobile and SaaS products. With a team of 501–1,000 employees, the company offers opportunities to work across language education, digital product development, marketing, and related business functions.

Senior Principal Engineer, AI Content Systems — Babbel, Berlin Hybrid

Set the technical direction for AI-powered content systems at Babbel Labs, an AI-first language-learning company. Lead architecture, governance, and engineering delivery across teams.

Description

  • Set and execute the long-term technical strategy for AI-powered content systems
  • Guide architecture across platforms, tooling, AI infrastructure, and build-versus-buy decisions
  • Develop frameworks for AI evaluation, quality measurement, governance, observability, security, and operational reliability
  • Work with senior Engineering, Product, Content, and Data leaders on technical roadmaps and investment priorities
  • Surface organisation-wide technical risks, dependencies, and opportunities
  • Define engineering standards, architectural principles, and operating practices
  • Coach Principal and Senior Engineers through mentoring, design reviews, and technical leadership
  • Lead complex technical initiatives, contribute hands-on, and remove difficult technical blockers
  • Turn strategic requirements into technical direction, decompose work, guide implementation, and resolve delivery issues
  • Use coding agents in delivery and improve their effectiveness across the team

Requirements

  • Strong background in computational linguistics, natural language processing, or applied linguistics
  • A track record of working at Senior Principal Engineer level, or with equivalent scope, in a technology organisation
  • Ability to shape technical strategy across multiple teams, products, or business domains
  • Extensive experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems and platform architectures
  • Practical experience designing, building, and deploying production AI/ML systems at scale
  • Strong knowledge of AI evaluation, governance, observability, security, privacy, and operational risk management
  • Experience leading organisation-wide technical initiatives from strategic planning through execution
  • Experience advising senior leaders on technical roadmaps, investment choices, and long-term technology strategy
  • Exceptional communication and stakeholder management capabilities
  • Ability to connect long-term technical vision with pragmatic delivery in ambiguous settings
  • Experience providing technical leadership to engineering groups while continuing as an active individual contributor
  • Coding agents are used routinely, and their output is reviewed before being relied upon
  • An advanced degree or equivalent professional expertise in computational linguistics, NLP, or a related linguistic field is desirable
  • Experience with AI-enabled content platforms, educational technology, or knowledge systems is desirable
  • Experience with retrieval systems, RAG architectures, vector databases, agentic workflows, and current AI application patterns is desirable
  • Experience creating AI governance frameworks and operating models at scale is desirable
  • Experience with AWS architectures and modern cloud-native platforms is desirable
  • Experience supporting organisation-wide adoption of AI capabilities across teams and business functions is desirable
  • Deep expertise in linguistic content-system design and linguistic and pedagogical principles is desirable
  • Experience advising senior leadership on emerging technologies, AI strategy, and technical investment is desirable
  • Public technical leadership through conferences, publications, open-source work, or industry engagement is desirable

Benefits

  • A remote- and Berlin-friendly working arrangement
  • An inclusive and equitable company culture
  • Application accommodations for disabilities or special needs
  • The opportunity to build AI-powered language-learning systems with organisation-wide impact
  • Hands-on technical leadership and professional growth through coaching, design reviews, and technical leadership

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