Staff AI Engineer

Staff AI Engineer (Hands‑on, LLM Platforms, Technical Lead)Location: New York Working model: On‑site Package: $250,000 + Equity + Bonus The Opportunity An established, technology‑driven organisation is building a central AI engineering capability to support complex, data‑intensive decision‑making across the business.This is a high‑impact individual contributor role for a Senior AI Engineer who enjoys operating close to the commercial core. You'll take ownership of critical AI systems from architecture through to deployment, working within a small, trusted technical group with direct access to senior stakeholders.The environment suits someone who thrives in low‑bureaucracy, high‑autonomy settings, where AI is expected to deliver real, measurable value, not experiments for experimentation's sake. The Role You will act as the technical lead for advanced AI tooling, owning system design and delivery across a range of internal use cases.Responsibilities include:Designing and building LLM‑based applications, including retrieval‑augmented generation and agent‑style workflowsOwning end‑to‑end system architecture, performance, and scalabilityDeveloping AI tools to support research, monitoring, knowledge discovery, and decision supportEstablishing evaluation and quality frameworks to ensure AI outputs meet high reliability standardsReviewing code, setting engineering standards, and supporting the development of other engineersPartnering closely with non‑technical users to translate complex workflows into intuitive AI productsAssessing third‑party tooling and platforms where appropriateThis is a deeply hands‑on role with real ownership. What We're Looking For Core requirements:Strong software engineering background (Python preferred)Proven experience building production AI systems, particularly modern LLM applicationsSolid understanding of: Prompt design and iterationEmbedding pipelines and vector databasesRAG architectures and tool‑use patternsModel evaluation and monitoringExperience deploying AI products used by non‑technical stakeholdersComfortable setting technical direction while remaining a builderNice to have:Exposure to complex analytical or commercial domainsExperience working in small, senior engineering teamsBackground in cloud‑native environments Why Join? Ownership of mission‑critical AI systemsDirect visibility of impact, your work will be used day‑to‑dayModern AI stack with freedom to make technical decisionsLong‑term scope to shape and grow the AI engineering function Desired Skills and Experience VP, AI Engineer