AI Engineer (4+ YoE)

Base Salary: $175,000 - $225,000 per year

The range depends on years of relevant experience and the breadth and depth of the applicable skills in the job description below.

Company summary:

Teragonia, a robustly capitalized startup with a well-established clientele, is dedicated to transforming the financial sponsor universe through cutting-edge data science and AI solutions. Our mission is to reimagine how financial sponsors execute their investment thesis, from sourcing to exit, and maximize value to all stakeholders (financial sponsors comprise private equity firms, venture capitalists, family funds, and sovereign wealth funds). We seek to accomplish this mission through an industry-aligned operating model that optimally blends business domain knowledge, technology, and quantitative techniques.

Our core offerings include: (i) business intelligence applications, (ii) enterprise solutions that provide data science and operations research-driven insights to business users, and (iii) data science consulting.

Teragonia offers a comprehensive career development platform through cross-learning within our multidisciplinary structure. We nurture a diverse, inclusive, collaborative, respectful, and collegial environment. Our competitive compensation package aligns with industry leaders, encompassing 401k contribution matching, medical insurance, and additional benefits.

Division summary:

Teragonia’s Data Science and Operations Research (DS&OR) consulting division centers around the financial sponsor industry, given the important role the industry plays in fostering innovation and improving operating efficiency in the economy, while providing access to substantial private capital to startups and middle market companies. We specialize in leveraging innovative statistical, optimization, and AI/ML models to solve business problems and generate transformative business value.

We champion the professional growth and development of our team members, offering focused education, diverse professional experiences, and mentorship. We understand the importance of balancing between professional advancement and personal pursuits. Our team fosters a collaborative and forward-thinking environment.

Job summary:

As an AI Engineer at Teragonia, you will play a crucial role in researching, developing, and implementing cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions. You will collaborate with Teragonia’s multidisciplinary team of data scientists, data engineers, software engineers, and UI/UX experts to design, develop and deploy the company’s AI offerings (especially Generative AI). You will have the opportunity and the management support to create innovative products and services that leverage the power of AI for our clients. 

You will 

• Design and develop AI models and algorithms using various programming languages, platforms, and frameworks
• Work closely with our business leaders to collect and analyze large datasets to gain business and financial insights from AI models
• Utilize knowledge of cloud platforms and services to implement and optimize machine learning and deep learning algorithms for efficient and scalable deployment, and 
• work across an entire lifecycle from ideation to production to deployment of domain specific and fit-for-purpose open-source Large Language Models (LLMs)

We are particularly interested in candidates who operate with integrity, intellectual humility, and a long-term career commitment. The ideal candidate for this role will have a solid foundation in computer science, especially in Artificial Intelligence (AI) concepts like NLP, language models, as well as machine learning and programming. You should be able to extract, summarize and articulate meaningful business insights to our financial sponsor clients. 

The ideal candidate will have excellent attention to detail and the ability to work effectively as part of our diverse multidisciplinary team of business analysts, software engineers, financial engineers, and operations researchers. You will be passionate about learning the business applications of AI to enable revenue growth and cost optimization for our clients. You will develop and utilize expertise in technical research and review existing solutions and literature relevant to the problem.

You should be able to write clean code efficiently to develop advanced models. You will receive appropriate mentoring and access company-selected resources and training programs to develop your coding skills for efficient production and implementation. You will utilize your experience with machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or scikit-learn and lead the implementation of AI models.

The engagement planning and status update meetings are critical to Teragonia’s innovation process and maintaining high-quality standards and efficiency. More importantly, they contribute to your professional development. You will actively participate in the engagement planning and brainstorming sessions by presenting your ideas, asking questions, and challenging the ideas presented. You will proactively manage your workload and the delivery timelines assigned to you and provide status updates as requested by the leaders. 

You will have strong communication and presentation skills and be able to clearly articulate to the team, and clients, the business applications and impact of the AI and ML concepts applied to the product.

Innovation:

Constant, purpose-led innovation is central to Teragonia’s success. You will work closely with Teragonia’s data scientists to stay up-to-date on the latest advancements in AI technologies and techniques. Innovating our processes to improve efficiency and novel solutions to our client’s business problems will be highly regarded by the executive leaders.

Thought leadership:

As an AI/ML Engineer, you will contribute to the development of Teragonia’s AI strategy and roadmap. You will have the opportunity to assist the executive leaders with strategic marketing initiatives, including preparing marketing materials like pitch decks, case studies, and online marketing campaigns highlighting Teragonia’s AI solutions. You will actively assist with conducting research for thought leadership initiatives, including publishing white papers and articles in peer-reviewed journals, conferences, and relevant domain-specific publications.

Minimum requirements:

• Be located and eligible to work in the United States.
• Masters’ degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Data Science or a closely related field.
• 4+ years of experience in a data science or ML engineering role in training, evaluating, and deploying scalable AI/ML models in production environments.
• Proficiency in running ML models in distributed clusters, GPU optimization, and parallel environments.
• Experience in projects or building products that use language models or generative AI.
• Proficiency in Python or R, vector databases, industry-standard NLP toolkits and platforms including LangChain and HuggingFace.

Preferred, but not required:

• 6+ years of experience in a data science or ML engineering role
• Experience in designing, developing and deploying conversational AI solutions.
• Experience in Information Retrieval systems for document question answering or summarization tasks.

DS & OR Flexible work policy:

For this role, we are looking for candidates living in, or willing to relocate to, within commutable distance of the Chicago metropolitan area. We will reimburse your reasonable relocation expenses.

We expect your presence in the office (located in the Fulton Market area of Chicago) based on business or team needs or team-building activities that are most productive in person. We do not impose specific days for in-office attendance.

Benefits:

We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package designed to attract top talent and motivate high performance.

• Competitive Total Compensation - We constantly benchmark our pay scales against the market to maintain competitiveness.
• Restricted Stock Awards - We offer restricted stock awards to select positions to ensure our teams’ long-term commitment and hard work are rewarded by sharing our collective success.
• Visa Sponsorship - We offer visa sponsorship for eligible employees.
• 401k Plan with Employer Contributions - We help secure your future with matching of 401k contributions up to 3.5% of your annual base salary, rising to 6% on the calendar year after your first work anniversary.
• Professional Development Opportunities - We will sponsor company-selected training sessions, conferences, and certifications to foster your growth.
• Meal Reimbursement - Reimbursement for lunch at the office, and dinner too if you are working past 7 pm, up to a limit.
• Gym Membership - Reimbursement for fitness & wellness programs, such as gym memberships, up to a limit.
• Commuter Benefits - We offer the opportunity to leverage the available tax concessions for commuting expenses.
• Relocation Assistance - Available to those who move to the Chicago or New York City metropolitan area as required by their job role.
• Paid Time Off (PTO) - You will be eligible for 15 to 20 days PTO, depending on level, accrued according to company policies.
• Annual Quiet Week - From Dec 24 to Jan 2, we anticipate a quiet week. During this period, all employees may work remotely, and we put in our best effort to keep workload as light as possible in light of balancing business needs.
• Firm Holidays - 12 firm-designated holidays annually, in addition to the eligible PTO.
• Comprehensive Healthcare, Vision, and Dental Insurance - We prioritize your health and wellness with insurance coverage through leading national providers.
• Gynecology, fertility, and family-building benefits through leading providers.
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA) / Health Savings Account (HSA) Plan - We provide the opportunity to manage your healthcare expenses efficiently through FSA/HSA plans.
• Mental Health Support - Enroll in our healthcare plan and gain access to mental health support through Talkspace.
• HealthAdvocate - Expert assistance to help you navigate the complexities of the healthcare system.
• Disability Insurance - We sponsor short term disability insurance through a leading national provider.
• Sick Days - We adhere to applicable state regulations, ensuring you have time to recover when you are not feeling well.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Statement

Teragonia strives for diversity and inclusion in the workforce and does not tolerate harassment or discrimination of any kind. We make employment decisions based on the needs of our business and the qualifications of the individual and do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy or other medical conditions/needs), family or parental status, marital, civil union or domestic partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, personal appearance, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or any legally protected characteristic not otherwise covered here. We encourage all to apply.