ROKO Labs is a fast-growing strategic product and technology consultancy based in NYC. We are seeking a highly motivated and resourceful person who enjoys solving complex problems! We have a great track record of working with large Fortune 500 companies and VC-backed start-ups. We are incredibly proud of our work and would be excited to share it with you! Our clients value that we understand their businesses and help to build products that users love! Additionally, our extended team spans multiple countries, making for fun cultural exchanges.
We are seeking an experienced Senior AI Engineer to lead the design and implementation of scalable, production-ready AI solutions that drive business value. This role combines architectural thinking with strong hands-on technical execution and business alignment. The ideal candidate is not only capable of defining AI architecture and best practices to ensure that the initiatives deliver measurable business impact, but is also comfortable building, testing, and deploying solutions directly. You will work cross-functionally with engineering, data, product, and business teams to translate requirements into robust AI systems.
IDEAL CANDIDATE QUALIFICATIONS:
Key Responsibilities
- Design and implement end-to-end LLM-powered applications, with a strong focus on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines
- Build production-ready AI systems using Python and modern AI/ML frameworks
- Develop and optimize data ingestion, embedding pipelines, and semantic search workflows
- Design and implement scalable vector database architectures
- Integrate and work with selected AI platforms and APIs (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI)
- Deploy and maintain AI solutions in cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
- Collaborate with product and engineering teams to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions
- Ensure code quality, testing, monitoring, and performance optimization of AI systems in production
- Contribute to MLOps practices including CI/CD pipelines, model lifecycle management, and observability
- Document technical decisions and implementation details
Required Qualifications
- Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, AI, or a related field
- 7+ years of experience in backend software engineering with the latest 1-2 years developing and implementing AI-powered solutions
- Proven hands-on experience building and deploying LLM applications, especially RAG-based systems
- Strong programming skills with the following order of preference regarding languages: Python > .NET > TypeScript > Java
- Experience integrating LLM APIs (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI)
- Solid understanding of vector databases (e.g., Pinecone or Weaviate) and semantic search architectures
- Experience with at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP) in production environments
- Understanding of APIs, microservices, and scalable backend architecture
- Experience deploying applications to production environments
- Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work in a fast-evolving AI landscape
Nice to Have
- Experience contributing to AI system architecture design and technical standards
- Experience participating in AI roadmap discussions and technical planning
- Experience designing or implementing multi-agent AI systems
- Experience with alternative vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Milvus)
- Experience with Hugging Face ecosystem or fine-tuning open-source models
- Hands-on experience with advanced MLOps frameworks and model governance
- PhD (completed or in progress) in a relevant field
- Experience mentoring junior engineers or leading smaller technical initiatives
WE OFFER:
- Our developers work on only one project at a time, so there is no need to juggle 2 or more projects
- We work on long-term projects, you have the opportunity to get to know the client and his needs well, as well as the team
- You will have the opportunity to work on complex solutions with the latest technologies
- Remote work means it's up to you whether you work from home, beach, or the office
- Flexible working hours mean that you can tailor your workday to your preferences, without a time-tracking system
- All our employees will right away receive a contract for an indefinite period (B2B collaboration is also an option)
- We provide regular feedback as part of our commitment to your ongoing development and success
- Job role switch, if you want to try some new roles or technologies, we are here to support you by providing opportunities, feedback, and mentor
- If you love taking courses or going to conferences, we are always open to discussing education opportunities
- Each team has its own monthly knowledge-sharing sessions combined with weekly talks and brainstorming sessions aimed at improving our current work and processes
- If you have a colleague or a friend who could be a good fit for us, we can offer you a referral fee
- Salary will be based on your experience and skills