Senior AI Engineer - Agentic AI for Utilities

nxzen; Sydney; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

nxzen is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to design and deliver production-grade agentic AI solutions for Australian utilities, leading technical work on client engagements and setting engineering standards for the team.

You will work with Microsoft Foundry, Databricks and Azure data services to build secure, testable, and explainable AI solutions deployed in operational environments and mentored across onshore and offshore teams.

Qualifications

• Six or more years of professional software engineering, with at least two years building large language model applications.
• Hands-on experience with Microsoft Foundry (Azure AI Foundry): agents, orchestration, governance, guardrail setup and model deployment.
• Experience with at least one agent framework such as AutoGen, Semantic Kernel or the Microsoft Agent Framework, and with reusable, modular agent architecture.
• Strong Python, with working knowledge of C# or TypeScript.
• Experience building retrieval augmented generation, including chunking, embeddings, vector search, grounding and citation.
• Experience with Azure Logic Apps, Durable Functions and Power Automate for workflow and business logic.
• Practical experience of AI evaluation, TEVV and red teaming, and of building observability into AI systems.
• Sound engineering discipline: Git, code review, automated testing, CI/CD and infrastructure as code.
• A sprint oriented, analytically sharp way of working, and the ability to explain technical choices to non-technical stakeholders.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Engineering, Data Science or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• Background in energy, water or other critical infrastructure environments.
• Exposure to voice interfaces (speech-to-text and text-to-speech) for field or mobile users.
• Proficiency in Databricks, Unity Catalog and MLflow.
• Experience integrating with utility systems such as SAP, Maximo, GIS or ADMS.
• Demonstrated ability to lead distributed onshore and offshore teams.
• Consulting or professional services experience.
• Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate (AI-103) or Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-102).
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305).

Responsibilities

• Design and build agentic AI solutions on Microsoft Foundry, including agent configuration, orchestration, memory, session management, escalation logic and guardrails.
• Build multi agent workflows using AutoGen, Semantic Kernel or the Microsoft Agent Framework, integrated with Azure Logic Apps, Durable Functions and Power Automate where business process logic sits.
• Build retrieval augmented generation pipelines with the AI Data Engineer: chunking strategy, vector indexes, hybrid search, grounding and source citation.
• Integrate AI solutions with client systems such as enterprise asset management, GIS, ADMS and customer platforms, including through the Model Context Protocol where appropriate.
• Design for reuse: modular, build once components that can be repurposed across use cases and clients.
• Apply a Test, Evaluate, Verify and Validate (TEVV) approach to every solution, with automated evaluation harnesses for accuracy, groundedness, safety and regression.
• Plan and run red teaming inside Microsoft Foundry to the approach agreed with the AI Architect, and close the findings before release.
• Build logging, tracing and monitoring into solutions so that behaviour in production is observable and auditable.
• Apply secure by design practice, including identity through Microsoft Entra ID, least privilege access and protection of client data within agreed onshore boundaries.
• Act as technical lead on client engagements, owning the engineering plan and the quality of what the team delivers, within the solution architecture agreed with the AI Architect.
• Set and maintain engineering standards for the practice: repository structure, code review, CI/CD, testing and documentation.
• Mentor AI Engineers onshore and guide engineers in the nxzen India delivery team, including orientation to Australian client, security and regulatory expectations.
• Use approved AI-assisted development tools, including GitHub Copilot, and help the team use them well.
• Support the Practice Lead and the AI Architect with effort estimates and working prototypes for bids.
• Present technical solutions to client architects and technology leaders with clarity and credibility.
• Contribute to the practice’s library of reusable agents, patterns and accelerators.

Job description

nxzen is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to design and deliver production-grade agentic AI solutions for Australian utilities, leading technical work on client engagements and setting engineering standards for the team.

You will work with Microsoft Foundry, Databricks and Azure data services to build secure, testable, and explainable AI solutions deployed in operational environments and mentored across onshore and offshore teams.