AI Engineer

Job Profile Summary/Mission

Design, build, and operate the AI systems that Operations relies on. The AI Engineer is responsible for the most technically demanding work—advanced algorithms, production agents, and shared frameworks—and delivers reusable infrastructure that enables the rest of the team to work efficiently.

Production AI systems

• Develop, deploy, and maintain operations-critical AI systems, including agents, harnesses, tools, and evaluation pipelines.
• Accountable for reliability, latency, cost, and accuracy.

Advanced algorithms

• Develop numerical optimization, forecasting, computer vision, and anomaly detection capabilities in cases where off-the-shelf AI does not meet the operational requirement.

Shared frameworks

• Develop the code templates, agent skills, and function-calling patterns reused by Forward Deployed Engineers and AI Analysts, enabling consistent and efficient delivery across the team.

Tooling and prompts

• Design, tune, and evaluate purpose-built tools, function calls, and prompt templates.

Operations-aware user experience

• Develop custom user interfaces for operations workflows, designed from user requirements.

Mentorship

• Develop the capabilities of Forward Deployed Engineers and AI Analysts in AI engineering practices, code quality, and system design.
• Establish and maintain the technical standard for the team.

Security and IT partnership

• Ensure AI systems meet ONEOK IT and security standards as they are transitioned to production.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Management Information Systems, Computer Sciences, Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or other related field, with specific job-related experience as follows:
• Minimum 5 years of software engineering experience, including demonstrated production ownership of AI or ML systems.
• Extensive experience with LLM-based systems, including agent frameworks, tool use, evaluations, prompt engineering, and retrieval.
• Strong Python engineering skills, with familiarity in at least one of optimization, forecasting, or computer vision.
• Experience designing APIs, SDKs, or frameworks consumed by other engineers.
• Prominent track record operating systems in production, including monitoring, incident response, and cost management.

How We Measure Success

• Reliability, latency, and unit cost of production AI systems.
• Audience adoption of shared frameworks and templates across Forward Deployed Engineers and AI Analysts, measured by active reuse.
• Evaluation coverage and regression detection rate on deployed systems.
• Quality of mentorship, reflected in the growth and independence of Forward Deployed Engineers and AI Analysts.

Team & Collaboration

• Engages across the full Operations Analytics team.
• Partners with Forward Deployed Engineers to advance proven prototypes into enterprise-grade products, supports AI Analysts with tooling and prompt optimization, and relies on the Data Steward for reliable, contextualized data.
• Maintains close working relationships with IT and Security.

Knowledge, Skills And Abilities

• Skills in:
• relational database design including table structures, indexes and primary/foreign key fields.
• use and function of office equipment including computers and applicable software.
• interacting, advising and communicating effectively.
• developing solutions to complicated issues using abstract thinking in new or complex situations.
• managing and prioritizing multiple assignments with competing deadlines.
• reading and interpreting correspondence, reports, production statistics, cost analyses, contracts, accounting statements, income statements, ledgers, manuals and legal documents.

Strength Factors

• Physical Demands/Requirements:
• Sedentary Work - Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or a negligible amount of force frequently to lift, carry, push, pull, or otherwise move objects, including the human body.
• Sedentary work involves sitting most of the time, but may involve walking or standing for brief periods of time.
• Jobs are sedentary if walking and standing are required only occasionally and all other sedentary criteria are met.

Working Conditions/Environment

• Employee is subject to inside environmental conditions.
• Well lighted, climate controlled areas (Constantly).
• Frequent repetitive motion (Constantly).
• CRT (Computer Monitor(s)) (Constantly).

Travel

• Travel to other locations required.
• Driving based on assigned tasks, employee may be assigned a company vehicle requiring the applicable driver's license.

ONEOK is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, age, religion, creed, national origin, gender identity, disability, military/veteran status, genetic information or any other categories protected by applicable law.

Expected Salary Range

$92,000.00 - $138,000.00