Artificial Intelligence Engineer
OperAxis · Plano, TX · Yesterday
On-siteEngineeringContract
Responsibilities
- Design and build production RAG systems — from chunking strategy and embedding model selection, to vector store architecture (pgvector, OpenSearch, Pinecone, or FAISS), to retrieval optimization for accuracy and latency
- Orchestrate complex LLM workflows using frameworks like LangChain, LlamaIndex, or Semantic Kernel; implement multi-step reasoning, tool use, and structured output patterns
- Develop conversational AI systems across text (chatbots) and speech (voicebots with STT/TTS integration); manage latency and streaming constraints in real-time voice
- Leverage AWS Bedrock and Claude models directly; design effective system prompts, few-shot examples, and chain-of-thought reasoning; iterate based on real-world performance
- Build and scale AWS infrastructure — Lambda functions, API Gateway, Step Functions, DynamoDB, SQS, S3; implement CI/CD pipelines with Docker/ECS or EKS; write infrastructure-as-code
- Define quality and safety guardrails — implement content filtering, responsible AI practices, and evaluation frameworks to catch model drift and output degradation before production impact
- Own API design (REST, GraphQL) and microservices architecture; build event-driven systems that integrate seamlessly with enterprise systems
- Mentor and unblock junior engineers; establish patterns and best practices for how your team ships AI features reliably
Qualifications
- 10+ years shipping production software in Python or Java (Python strongly preferred)
- 2+ years hands-on building and deploying AI/ML applications in production — not coursework, not personal projects; real systems in a real environment
- Deep RAG expertise — you've built chunking strategies, selected and tuned embedding models, chosen vector stores based on use case, and optimized retrieval for production
- Proficiency with AI orchestration frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, or CrewAI); you can explain the trade-offs between them and when to use each
- Advanced prompt engineering skills — system prompts, few-shot learning, chain-of-thought reasoning, tool use, and structured outputs aren't abstract concepts to you; you've debugged them in production
- Experience with conversational AI systems — you've shipped text-based chatbots AND ideally have experience with voice systems (speech-to-text, text-to-speech, real-time streaming)
- Senior AWS proficiency — Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, DynamoDB, SQS, S3; you build without hand-holding and reason through cost and performance trade-offs
- CI/CD and containerization — solid grasp of Docker, ECS/EKS, infrastructure-as-code; shipping changes frequently and safely is table stakes
- API and systems design — you can articulate why you chose REST vs. GraphQL, how events flow through microservices, and where synchronous vs. asynchronous makes sense
- Evaluation and safety mindset — you've built evaluation frameworks for LLM outputs, implemented guardrails, and thought deeply about what can go wrong at scale
Preferred Skills
- Experience with model fine-tuning or retrieval optimization (RAG vs. in-context learning trade-offs)
- GraphQL implementation in production
- Familiarity with additional vector stores (Weaviate, Chroma, pgvector)
- Background in financial services or regulated industries
- Published writing or talks on AI systems architecture
- Experience with multi-modal models or agent frameworks beyond basic tool use
Pay and Benefits
Competitive salary, equity, and benefits package commensurate with experience.