Hey! We're The HOTH.
Our name stands for Hittem' Over the Head. In other words, to bludgeon with awesomeness.
We're one of the largest search marketing companies in the world, helping thousands of businesses grow through innovative digital marketing products and services.
Our parent company, Next Net, is investing heavily in AI. We're building a next-generation SaaS platform that combines large language models, cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, and modern engineering practices to help businesses understand and improve their online presence.
This isn't an AI side project.
It's one of the company's highest strategic priorities.
We're looking for a Principal AI Engineer to help build the future of NextNet AI.
This isn't a management role.
You won't spend your days sitting in status meetings or managing people.
This is a role for someone who loves building.
You'll partner directly with our CTO to solve the hardest technical problems across our platform. We're looking for someone who can jump into unfamiliar systems, understand them quickly, and ship production-quality solutions with confidence.
Some days you'll be debugging a frontend issue that turns into a backend API problem.
Other days you'll be optimizing AI pipelines, designing scalable cloud infrastructure, improving distributed services, or shipping entirely new product capabilities.
If you're the engineer people call when nobody else can figure something out, keep reading!
Please note: This is a senior, hands-on engineering position. While you'll partner closely with technical leadership, this role does not include people management responsibilities.
40% Building production-ready features across frontend, backend, AI services, and cloud infrastructure.
20% Diagnosing complex production issues, identifying root causes, and improving platform reliability.
15% Designing scalable architecture for new AI products and platform enhancements.
15% Evaluating new AI models, engineering approaches, and emerging technologies.
10% Collaborating with engineering leadership to solve high-impact technical challenges.
You don't need experience with every technology below, but you should have deep expertise in several and be excited to learn the rest.
Backend: Python, Django, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Redis
AI: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, RAG, vector databases, embeddings, AI orchestration
Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, ECS/Fargate, S3, Lambda, Terraform, Docker, Cloudflare, CI/CD
We're probably describing you if you...
We're one of the best kinds of companies to work for.
We've grown from a bootstrapped startup into one of the largest search marketing companies in the world, while maintaining the agility and culture that got us here.
We've been recognized multiple times as one of Tampa Bay's Best Places to Work and have also been recognized by Inc. Magazine for our workplace culture!
You'll work directly alongside experienced engineers solving meaningful technical problems with modern tools. Your work won't disappear into a giant organization. You'll see your ideas become products and your code reach customers quickly.
If you enjoy autonomy, ownership, and building things that matter, you'll fit right in.
This is a full-time W-2 position.
We're open to remote candidates located in states where Next Net is currently registered to employ team members.
Our preference is:
Hybrid employees follow our standard in-office schedule of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with remote work on Tuesday and Thursday. Fully remote employees are not expected to report to our St. Petersburg office on a regular basis.
At this time, we can only consider candidates residing in the following states who are authorized to work in the United States:
Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Ready to build something meaningful?
We'd love to hear from you.
Please submit your resume along with a short introduction telling us about the most technically challenging system you've built, scaled, or debugged. We'd also love to see your GitHub, personal projects, blog, or anything else that demonstrates your engineering work.
Bonus points if you include the word 'banana' somewhere in your introduction. We like engineers who pay attention to details.