Lead AI Engineer (AI Systems & Automation)

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Lead AI Engineer (AI Systems & Automation) based in the United States.

As a Lead AI Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in designing, building, and scaling production-grade AI systems that power complex business workflows. Working within a globally distributed engineering team, you will bridge cutting-edge AI capabilities with robust backend infrastructure to deliver reliable, high-performance automation solutions. This is a highly technical leadership role where you'll shape system architecture, drive engineering excellence, and mentor fellow engineers while remaining hands-on with development. You'll collaborate across product, operations, infrastructure, and engineering teams to build scalable AI services that have a measurable impact on real-world users. If you thrive in fast-paced environments, enjoy solving large-scale systems challenges, and are passionate about bringing AI into production, this opportunity offers significant technical ownership and influence.

• Lead the design, architecture, and delivery of production AI systems that automate complex business workflows.
• Develop scalable AI orchestration layers connecting large language models, backend services, and operational processes.
• Own end-to-end AI infrastructure, including inference pipelines, intelligent routing, caching mechanisms, and fallback strategies.
• Drive technical decisions focused on system performance, scalability, reliability, latency, and operational cost.
• Implement and maintain robust observability practices through monitoring, logging, tracing, and alerting solutions.
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to deliver end-to-end AI-powered features and services.
• Troubleshoot complex production issues, perform root-cause analysis, and continuously improve system resilience.
• Establish engineering standards, best practices, and architectural guidelines for AI system development.
• Review code, provide technical leadership, and mentor engineers to strengthen engineering quality and execution.

Requirements

• Extensive experience in backend engineering or AI engineering within production environments.
• Proven expertise building or scaling AI-powered systems using technologies such as large language models, embeddings, recommendation engines, or workflow automation.
• Strong knowledge of distributed systems architecture and production system design.
• Hands-on experience developing AI inference pipelines and orchestration frameworks.
• Excellent debugging and problem-solving skills in high-scale, latency-sensitive systems.
• Experience implementing observability, monitoring, incident response, and production support practices.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical initiatives across cross-functional teams while maintaining hands-on coding responsibilities.
• Proficiency with Python, Node.js, SQL and NoSQL databases, Kubernetes, Docker, and modern cloud-native development practices.
• Strong communication, ownership mindset, leadership skills, and the ability to perform effectively in globally distributed, fast-paced environments.

Benefits

• Fully remote position with the flexibility to work from anywhere within the United States.
• Competitive compensation package.
• Learning and development budget to support continuous technical growth.
• Opportunity to work alongside an international engineering team across multiple countries.
• High-impact technical leadership role with significant ownership of critical AI systems.
• Exposure to modern AI technologies, scalable infrastructure, and production-grade engineering practices.
• Collaborative engineering culture focused on technical excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Opportunity to influence AI architecture, engineering standards, and long-term technical strategy.