AI Engineer

AI Engineer (Production AI / Agentic Systems) Expertalent is hiring an AI Engineer on behalf of our client, an established organisation building AI capabilities at scale. This is a hands-on builder role: you'll take AI and agentic systems from idea to reliable production, under real load with real failure modes. Our client is being deliberately selective. We're looking for engineers who have shipped LLM or agentic systems that others depend on, and who can hold their own with skeptical senior engineers. Weekend RAG demos and notebook prototypes won't be enough. What you'll do: Design, build, and deploy production-grade AI/agentic systems, from architecture through monitoring and iteration Own the full lifecycle of at least one non-trivial AI capability: problem framing, evaluation, prompt/context engineering, orchestration, and post-launch tuning Build deterministic guardrails around probabilistic components (retries, validation, fallbacks, human-in-the-loop checkpoints) Design evaluation pipelines that catch regressions, not vanity metrics Make sound tradeoffs on latency, cost, and reliability, treating token economics as a design constraint Integrate AI systems into existing infrastructure without breaking what already works Push back on weak ideas with technical reasoning What you'll bring: 4+ years of software engineering experience, including 1-2+ years shipping LLM/agentic systems in production Strong Python and/or TypeScript Hands-on depth with LLM APIs (Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.), agent frameworks (LangGraph, CrewAI, Strands, or similar), and vector stores/RAG, with clear opinions on where each breaks down Solid evaluation methodology: you know a good demo from a reliable system Systems fundamentals: APIs, event-driven design, queuing, observability, CI/CD Clear communication with both engineers and non-technical stakeholders Genuine curiosity and self-direction in a fast-moving field Nice to have: Cloud-native deployment (Kubernetes/OpenShift) and AWS/Azure/GCP Experience with AI gateways or model routing (e.g. Portkey) Spec-driven or agent-first SDLC experience Open-source contributions, technical writing, or a portfolio of shipped AI products Background in regulated industries (finance, insurance, healthcare) Interested? Send your CV to Expertalent, along with any examples of AI systems you've shipped.