Senior AI Engineer

Virgin Australia; City of Brisbane; Hybrid; AUD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Heavily discounted air travel

Flexible working arrangements

Wellness support

Employee assistance program

Dress for your day

Job summary

A major airline is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to enhance customer experiences and optimize operations through innovative AI solutions. This hybrid role offers the opportunity to work with cross-functional teams and requires strong technical skills in AI, software engineering, and platforms like AWS. Applicants must have a relevant degree and experience with LLMs. The position includes generous travel benefits and flexible working arrangements.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with LLMs and agentic systems.
• Experience in cross-functional delivery with Product, Engineering, Security, and Operations teams.
• Deep knowledge of agent-based architectures and embeddings.
• Cross-functional delivery with Product, Engineering, Security, Legal/Privacy and Operations.
• Proficiency in Python, FastAPI/FastMCP, and React + TypeScript.
• Knowledge of advanced RAG techniques, including retrieval and safety controls.
• Experience with Databricks, pgvector, AWS Cognitive Search (or equivalents).
• Strong security/privacy fundamentals (IAM, secrets, network isolation, PII).
• Clear communication with technical and executive audiences; Agile & roadmap ownership.
• Deep knowledge of agent architectures, embeddings and vector databases.
• Familiar with MLOps/LLMOps patterns and AWS cloud for scalable AI workloads.

Responsibilities

• Harness AI to enhance customer experiences and optimize operations.
• Design and deliver innovative AI solutions.
• Participate in incident response and own corrective actions.
• Participate in incident response and post-incident reviews, driving fixes.
• Guide platform evolution with roadmaps and tech debt management.

Skills

Python

FastAPI/FastMCP

React + TypeScript

MLOps/LLMOps patterns

Data quality controls

Communication across technical audiences

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or Data Science

Tools

Databricks

AWS Cognitive Search

AWS Cognitive Search

Tool calling

Job description

Overview

Full-time, permanent hybrid position that can be based in either Sydney or Brisbane.

Hello. We’re Virgin Australia. We’re the airline that’s always done things a little different. Our way. The Virgin way. We’re on a mission to make flying better than ‘nice’. And to do that, it takes a team of talented people who are passionate about customer experience, doing the right thing always, with a focus on safety – in the air, on the ground and in our workplaces. A team who values real diversity and inclusion, in a big brand with big ambitions.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll harness the power of Artificial Intelligence to enhance customer experiences, optimise operations for efficiency and reliability, uphold safety standards and enable our people to perform at their best. As a Senior AI Engineer you’ll bring hands on expertise in applied AI and full stack software engineering to design and deliver innovative solutions that make a real impact.

Virgin Australia is at a pivotal moment in its AI journey, and requires AI Engineers who thrive in fast‑paced environments. The ideal candidate aims for technical excellence while recognising the realities of delivery, trade‑offs and compromise. They understand what it takes to deliver production‑ready solutions, including testing, evaluation and observability.

Further responsibilities

• Run LLMOps/AgentOps as part of solution ops. For example, prompt/config management, evaluation suites, safety/red‑testing, human‑in‑the‑loop controls.
• Design and implement data paths for AI solutions: ingestion, embedding/knowledge stores, retrieval pipelines, caching and data quality controls.
• Orchestrate safe rollout: canary/A‑B experiments, feature flags and controlled exposure to external end‑users.
• Participate in incident response and post‑incident reviews; own corrective actions and learning loops.
• Manage platform evolution and technical debt through roadmaps, migrations, and standards alignment with the broader IT organisation.

Qualifications

• Hold a Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science or have equivalent applied experience.
• Have hands‑on experience with LLMs and agentic systems (e.g., RAG, tool/function calling, planning).
• Thrive in cross‑functional delivery with Product, Engineering, Security, Legal/Privacy and Operations teams.
• Are skilled in Python, FastAPI/FastMCP, and React + TypeScript.
• Understand advanced RAG techniques, including retrieval strategies, context packing, tool orchestration and safety/guardrails.
• Know your way around Databricks, pgvector, AWS Cognitive Search (or equivalents).
• Apply strong fundamentals in security and privacy (IAM, secrets, network isolation, PII handling, auditability).
• Communicate effectively across technical and executive audiences with experience in Agile delivery and roadmap ownership.
• Have deep knowledge of agent based architectures, embeddings and vector databases.
• Understand MLOps/LLMOps patterns (CI/CD, registries, automated evaluations, feature stores, canary/shadow deployments).
• Are familiar with AWS cloud concepts for secure, scalable AI workloads and software engineering best practices (testing, CI/CD, code health).

Benefits

• Heavily discounted air travel for you and your loved ones (including $1000 worth of travel credits per year).
• Flexible working arrangements (including work hours and work from home).
• Discounts on travel insurance, car hire, accommodation and experiences worldwide.
• Hospitality, retail, technology, beauty services and wellness discounts.
• Wellness support, including the Converge digital wellbeing platform.
• A comprehensive Employee Assistance Program, which offers confidential coaching and support from qualified professionals for all aspects of life – physical, mental, social and financial.
• Dress for Your Day – enjoy the freedom to wear whatever is appropriate for the type of work you do and the day you have ahead of you.

Inclusivity

We’re all individuals. And we love that. That’s why we encourage applications from Indigenous Australians, people with disability, those from diverse cultural backgrounds, our friends in the LGBTQIA+ community, and anyone else who wants to join our family.

Ready to apply?

We’re ready to hear from you. Apply now.