AI Application Engineer / Lead

About the role

UST is searching for an experienced AI Application Engineer / Lead to design, build, and deploy enterprise-grade AI applications that transform engineering, R&D, manufacturing, and knowledge management processes.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy enterprise AI applications powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) and foundation models.
• Build scalable Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions leveraging enterprise knowledge repositories.
• Develop AI-powered copilots, assistants, and intelligent automation solutions.
• Design REST APIs and backend services for AI model integration.
• Build autonomous and human-in-the-loop AI agent architectures.
• Design planning, reasoning, tool-calling, memory management, and workflow orchestration capabilities.
• Develop multi-agent systems for complex enterprise workflows.
• Fine-tune, evaluate, optimize, and monitor AI models for production use.
• Implement prompt engineering, evaluation frameworks, and AI observability.
• Build reusable AI platform components and enterprise AI frameworks.
• Deploy AI applications on Microsoft Azure (preferred) or AWS.
• Integrate vector databases, enterprise search platforms, and cloud AI services.
• Ensure scalability, reliability, security, and performance of AI solutions.
• Lead solution architecture and technical design discussions.
• Mentor junior engineers and establish AI engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, R&D, and business stakeholders to deliver AI-driven business solutions.
• Drive adoption of reusable AI frameworks across multiple teams.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• 5–8 years of software engineering experience.
• 3+ years of AI/ML engineering experience.
• 1–2+ years of hands-on experience building production Generative AI applications.
• Strong Python programming and software development skills.
• Experience designing and deploying production-grade AI applications.

Skills

Programming

• Python (Mandatory)
• SQL
• TypeScript / JavaScript (Preferred)
• C++ (Preferred)

AI / Machine Learning

• Large Language Models (GPT, Claude, Llama, Gemini, Mistral)
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Prompt Engineering
• AI Model Evaluation
• PyTorch or TensorFlow
• Hugging Face Transformers
• MLflow
• Agentic AI
• LangGraph
• LangChain
• Semantic Kernel
• AutoGen
• CrewAI
• Multi-Agent Systems
• Tool Calling & Function Calling
• Workflow Orchestration
• Memory Management

Backend & APIs

• FastAPI
• REST APIs
• gRPC (Preferred)

Vector Databases

• Azure AI Search
• Elasticsearch / OpenSearch
• Chroma
• PGVector

Data Platforms

• Databricks
• Microsoft Fabric
• PostgreSQL

Cloud Platforms

• Microsoft Azure (Preferred)
  • Azure OpenAI
  • Azure AI Foundry
  • Azure AI Search
  • Azure Functions
  • Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
  • ADLS Gen2
• AWS (Preferred)
• GCP (Nice to Have)

Security & Governance

• Enterprise security best practices
• Secure API development
• RBAC and Identity Management
• Data governance and Responsible AI
• Model monitoring and observability
• AI governance and guardrails
• PII protection and data privacy

Pay

Role Location: California
Compensation Range: $94,000–$141,000

Benefits

• Full-time, regular employees accrue a minimum of 10 days of paid vacation per year, receive 6 days of paid sick leave each year (pro-rated for new hires throughout the year), and 10 paid holidays.
• Eligible for paid bereavement leave and jury duty.
• Eligible to participate in the Company’s 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer matching.
• Eligible for medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and dependents residing in the US.
• Company-paid Employee Only benefits: basic life insurance, accidental death and disability insurance, and short- and long-term disability benefits.
• Option to purchase additional voluntary short-term disability benefits.
• Option to participate in a Health Savings Account (HSA) as well as a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) for healthcare, dependent child care, and/or commuting expenses as allowable under IRS guidelines.
• Benefits offerings vary in Puerto Rico.
• Part-time employees receive 6 days of paid sick leave each year (pro-rated for new hires throughout the year) and are eligible to participate in the Company’s 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer matching.
• Full-time temporary employees receive 6 days of paid sick leave each year (pro-rated for new hires throughout the year) and are eligible to participate in the Company’s 401(k) program with employer matching, as well as medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Part-time temporary employees receive 6 days of paid sick leave each year (pro-rated for new hires throughout the year).
• All US employees who work in a state or locality with more generous paid sick leave benefits than specified here will receive the benefit of those sick leave laws.