Role Summary:

We are hiring a founding AI Engineer Lead to build and scale AI capabilities from the ground up. This role will directly shape how AI is built and delivered across the organization. This is a hands-on engineering role responsible for designing, building, and deploying production AI solutions (copilots, agents, and automated workflows) that directly improve workflows, decision-making, and operational efficiency. Initial solutions will be built primarily in the Microsoft ecosystem (Azure, Copilot, and related tooling) to align to existing enterprise infrastructure. This role will also evaluate when more flexible, scalable, or custom AI systems are needed to ensure long-term flexibility and scalability.

The AI Engineering Lead will own development of critical AI systems while establishing technical patterns, tools, standards, and architecture for how we apply AI in the enterprise. This role will work closely with business stakeholders, product leaders, and data teams to turn high-value opportunities into reliable, production-ready solutions. The AI Engineering Lead will write production code, deliver high-impact solutions, and define how AI gets built across the organization.

Key Responsibilities:
Build and Deliver AI Solutions
• Design, build, and deploy production-grade end-to-end AI solutions, including workflow automation agents, RAG pipelines, and copilots embedded in business workflows, and LLM-driven applications
• Translate business needs into technical designs and working products to deliver usable, high-impact solutions, not just proofs of concept
• Architect and implement AI-assisted data workflows and agentic systems
• Build and maintain LLM-enabled services, prompt frameworks, and coding standards
• Develop semantic/context layers ensuring AI outputs align with business logic and data models
• Design multi-agent workflows, including human-in-the-loop controls
• Make pragmatic tradeoffs to ship quickly while maintaining long-term sustainability

Technical Design and Architecture
• Create scalable patterns for prompt design & orchestration, agent-based workflows, and API integrations & data access
• Inform architecture decisions for AI systems balancing speed, security, scalability, maintainability, and cost
• Help establish engineering standards and best practices for applied AI across the organization
• Establish reusable components, frameworks, and templates to accelerate AI development
• Integrate AI automation with enterprise systems, APIs, and data platforms
• Evaluate and recommend tooling across the stack (models, frameworks, vector stores, orchestration layers)
• Define data requirements and, when needed, build or extend data pipelines to ensure AI systems have reliable, production-ready inputs

Quality, Reliability, and Production Operations
• Design and implement evaluation frameworks to define and track AI system performance, including task success, accuracy, latency, cost, and business impact; establish feedback loops to continuously improve quality, reliability, and cost-efficacy in production environments
• Build guardrails and validation layers to reduce hallucinations, enforce structured outputs, and ensure safe system behavior
• Establish monitoring and observability across AI systems (performance, usage, cost, latency, failure modes)
• Implement modern engineering practices including CI/CD, versioning, rollback strategies, and automated testing
• Ensure solutions meet security, compliance, and governance requirements in a regulated environment

Cross-Functional Delivery and Adoption
• Partner with business leaders, operations & service teams, and product stakeholders to shape use cases and turn them into working solutions
• Work closely with AI Enablement to refine workflows and improve adoption
• Drive fast iteration cycles, quickly moving from idea to working solution to scaled implementation; iterate solutions based on real user feedback and usage patterns

Required Qualifications
• 7-10+ years in software engineering, data engineering, or AI/LLM experience
• Hands-on experience building and deploying production AI systems
• Hands-on experience building applications using LLMs and modern AI tooling
• Experience with cloud platforms (Azure preferred), Python, APIs, containerization, and CI/CD practices
• Experience building RAG pipelines, agent-based workflows, or orchestration layers
• Experience with vector databases, embedding pipelines, and retrieval systems
• Strong problem-solving ability and bias toward practical, efficient solutions; ability to operate in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment
• Experience translating business needs into technical solutions

Preferred Qualifications
• Experience working in the Microsoft ecosystem
• Experience implementing evaluation frameworks, guardrails, and observability for AI systems
• Experience working in regulated industries (insurance, financial services, healthcare)
• Exposure to full-stack development (frontend + backend) for delivering usable AI experiences

#LI-AG1

The anticipated posting timeline for this opportunity is 6/26/2026-7/26/2026.

Salary Range

$147,000-$220,000 USD

Compensation & Benefits

Being a part of IMA has its benefits. When you become part of the IMA family, you become eligible to take part in our valuable benefits and rewards package designed to benefit you, your family, and your life. Our plans are cost-effective, convenient and provide progressive ways for staying healthy, protecting loved ones, pursuing financial security and living a full and balanced life. This role is eligible for the following:

Annual Performance Bonus, Stock Purchase, Medical Plans, Prescription Drugs, Dental, Vision, Family Assistance Program, FSA, HSA, Pre-Tax Parking Plan, 401(k), Life/AD&D, Accident, Critical Illness, Hospital Indemnity, Long Term Care, Short-term Disability, Long-term Disability, Business Travel Accident, Identity Theft, Paid Time Off, Flexible Work Options, Paid Holidays, Sabbatical, Gift Matching, Well-Being Stipend, Personal and Professional Development. In addition to our robust benefits package, the final offer amounts will depend on a variety of factors, including the candidate's geographic location, prior relevant experience, and their knowledge, skills, and abilities.

*These benefits do not apply to internship roles.