Staff AI Engineer - Architecture skills

ABOUT THE ROLE

At Shift, we are building the next generation of AI-driven platform capabilities. We are looking for an experienced, hands-on Staff AI Engineer to serve as the technical anchor for our AI capabilities; someone who is deeply passionate about building, prototyping, and scaling modern AI/LLM systems, while helping shape our broader AI engineering strategy.

This is a high-impact, high-visibility role for a senior builder who excels at the intersection of cutting-edge AI technologies (Agentic frameworks, LLM orchestration, MCP, GenAI) and production-grade software engineering. You will work directly with data scientists, software engineers, and product leaders to design, prototype, and ship state-of-the-art AI systems into production.

If you are a senior AI engineer looking for the next step in your career -where you can drive architectural strategy and mentor others without giving up hands-on coding and building- this role is for you.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Build & Architect Agentic Systems (Hands-On): Lead by doing. Design, prototype, and build production-ready agentic workflows, custom orchestration layers, and tool-calling integrations using modern frameworks.
• Bridge AI & Production Engineering: Move AI prototypes into robust, production-grade microservices on Azure. Ensure AI components are scalable, low-latency, and well-integrated into the broader tech stack.
• Implement Next-Gen AI Standards: Experiment with and integrate emerging paradigms into our production stack, including Model Context Protocol (MCP), advanced RAG patterns, vector pipelines, and structured LLM outputs.
• Drive AI Quality & LLMOps: Establish and implement operational frameworks for experiment tracking, evaluations, prompt engineering, latency optimization, token budget governance, and model observability.
• Influence & Upskill: Act as a technical mentor for agent-focused engineering squads. Lead technical design reviews, set coding standards, and help elevate the team's AI engineering capabilities.
• Stay at the Cutting Edge: Continuously benchmark new models, AI tools, and architectures, translating relevant breakthroughs into practical, value-driving implementations at Shift.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are seeking a seasoned AI engineer who combines deep, practical expertise in modern GenAI/LLM ecosystems with strong backend software engineering skills.

Deep AI & Agentic Expertise:

• Hands-On Agentic Frameworks: Proven experience building with frameworks like Microsoft Agent Framework, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, OpenAI Agents SDK, or custom orchestration frameworks.
• LLM Patterns & Tooling: Practical experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP), tool/function calling, structured LLM outputs, and complex RAG pipelines (vector retrieval, hybrid search, embeddings).
• LLMOps & Observability: Experience with evaluation frameworks, prompt engineering, tracing, context window optimization, and compute/token governance in production.

Production Engineering & Stack:

• Programming: High proficiency in Python (required for AI ecosystem work) paired with strong experience in OOP.
• Cloud & APIs: Experience building and scaling backend microservices and REST/OpenAPI endpoints in enterprise cloud environments (specifically Azure).
• Data & Events: Familiarity with vector databases, relational databases, and event-driven patterns (e.g., Azure Service Bus, Kafka).
• Engineering Rigor: Comfortable with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), CI/CD, testing methodologies, and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or Bicep).

HOW YOU WORK

• Jump in and get things done: You are a proactive builder who loves turning ambitious ideas into working code. You don't wait for permission to solve hard problems.
• Make things simpler: You can break down complex AI concepts and architectures into clear, executable steps for engineers, data scientists, and non-technical partners alike.
• Test & learn new things: You are genuinely obsessed with the fast-moving AI landscape. You constantly experiment with new models, libraries, and papers, and know how to extract real product value from the hype.
• Communicate with impact & help others grow: You lead by example and collaboration, upskilling team members through pair programming, code reviews, and pragmatic design discussions.
  
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