Senior AI Engineer – Production Integration (Remote)

About the role

BridgeOne is looking for 1–2 senior AI engineers on 6–12 month contract engagements to work remotely from South Africa or Zimbabwe. You will act as the senior engineer on client engagements, partnering from architecture through to production and operation of AI systems.

Key responsibilities

• Design, build, evaluate, and operate production AI systems for enterprise clients in automation, EdTech, and financial services.
• Develop LLM‑integrated solutions, including retrieval pipelines, agent orchestration, and audit‑grade decision systems.
• Own the full feature stack: model selection, integration, evaluation harness, observability, and production deployment.
• Collaborate directly with BridgeOne partners, sharing code ownership and architectural review.

Required profile

• 5+ years of production software engineering experience with systems still in operation.
• 2+ years of hands‑on work with LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, or similar) in real production environments.
• Strong Python development (FastAPI, Django or similar) and comfort with TypeScript/Node when needed.
• Experience with at least one vector database (Pinecone, Weaviate, PostgreSQL + pgvector) and Retrieval‑Augmented Generation architectures.
• Understanding of evaluation frameworks for LLMs in production beyond simple accuracy metrics.
• Depth in production deployment: Docker, a major cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure), observability, and incident response.
• Self‑direction: able to scope work, ship independently, and document progress without daily stand‑ups.

Required skills

• Python
• FastAPI or Django
• TypeScript
• Node.js
• OpenAI API / Anthropic API
• Pinecone, Weaviate, PostgreSQL, pgvector
• Docker
• AWS, GCP, or Azure
• Observability tools
• Incident response practices

What we offer

• Senior contract role paid in USD, monthly invoicing.
• 6–12 month initial engagement with strong likelihood of renewal across projects.
• Direct collaboration with BridgeOne partners, no junior layer or recruiter gatekeeping.
• Work that ships to production and continues running after your contract ends.
• Fully remote setup focused on deep work, no mandatory Slack presence or daily stand‑ups.
• Exposure to 2–4 different industries during the engagement.