AI Tech Lead/Architect

Straive; Gurugram District; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work arrangements

Competitive compensation

Collaborative culture

Job summary

Straive is seeking a highly technical Senior AI/ML Tech Lead to architect and deploy Generative AI applications while guiding a team of engineers. You will bridge research and production, driving LLM-powered systems, RAG pipelines, OCR, and agentic workflows.

The role requires 8–10 years in software, 3–4+ years in AI/ML in production, and hands-on Python/ FastAPI development with cloud and MLOps expertise.

Qualifications

• 8–10 years of software engineering experience.
• 3–4+ years building and deploying AI/ML, OCR, and Generative AI in production.
• Proficiency in Python and modern frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Lead AI, backend, and full-stack engineers; allocate tasks and priorities.
• Architect end-to-end AI systems integrating frontend, backend, and models.
• Conduct design reviews for performance, security, and scalability.
• Mentor engineers on LLM engineering and agentic design patterns.
• Oversee MLOps, vector DBs, and cloud infrastructure (Azure/AWS).

Skills

8-10 years

AI/ML experience

Tools

Python

FastAPI

React

Azure

AWS

Docker

Kubernetes

Pinecone

Job description

Straive is a global leader in data analytics and AI operationalization, helping enterprises embed advanced AI and data capabilities into core business workflows to deliver measurable business outcomes and ROI. With a workforce of ~20,000 professionals serving 350+ clients across 30+ markets, Straive combines technical scale with deep domain expertise. A key differentiator is its network of over 6,000 subject matter experts who specialize in managing and enriching complex, unstructured data enabling organizations to build AI systems grounded in accuracy, context, and business relevance.

The company continues to earn recognition from leading industry analysts and was recently named a Leader in AIM’s 2026 Generative AI and Data Engineering PeMa Quadrants. Backed by EQT a purpose-driven global investment organization which was ranked among the world’s leading private equity firms by PEI in 2025 Straive is positioned as a high-value alternative to traditional IT services providers, combining domain-led intelligence with AI execution at scale.

Experience Level: 8–10 years overall (Minimum 3–4 years in AI/ML & Generative AI)

Employment Type: Full-Time

About the Role

We are seeking a highly technical, hands-on Senior AI/ML Tech Lead to drive the design, development, and deployment of cutting-edge Generative AI applications. In this dual-impact role, you will act as a primary individual contributor architecting core AI engines while simultaneously leading a team of engineers through task allocation, code reviews, and technical mentorship.

The ideal candidate bridges the gap between state-of-the-art AI research (LLMs, Agentic frameworks, Advanced RAG, OCR) and production-grade full-stack engineering (Python, FastAPI, React).

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Team Management (40%)

• Technical Oversight: Lead a team of AI, backend, and full-stack engineers; allocate tasks, establish sprint priorities, and ensure timely delivery.
• Code Quality & Reviews: Conduct rigorous code reviews to maintain high engineering standards, security, performance, and scalability across AI and full-stack codebases.
• Architecture & Governance: Design end-to-end system architectures for AI solutions, ensuring seamless integration between frontend interfaces, backend APIs, and AI models.
• Mentorship: Guide and upskill team members on modern software practices, LLM engineering, and agentic design patterns.
• Generative AI & Agentic Systems: Architect, build, and optimize LLM-powered applications, multi-agent workflows (e.g., CrewAI, AutoGen, LangGraph), and autonomous AI agents.
• RAG & OCR Pipelines: Design and deploy advanced RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) architectures and document processing pipelines utilizing OCR techniques (e.g., LayoutLM, PaddleOCR, Tesseract, Vision LLMs) to extract structured data from unstructured sources.
• Backend Systems: Build robust, asynchronous, high-throughput microservices and RESTful APIs using Python and FastAPI.
• Frontend Integration: Collaborate on or build modern web interfaces using React (e.g., Control Towers, operations dashboards, interactive chat interfaces).
• MLOps & Vector DBs: Oversee model deployment, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, vector database integration (Pinecone, Qdrant, Chroma, PGVector), and cloud infrastructure setup (Azure/AWS).

Required Qualifications & Skills

• Overall Experience: 8 to 10 years of professional software engineering experience.
• AI/ML Domain Experience: 3 to 4+ years of dedicated, hands-on experience building and deploying AI/ML, OCR, and Generative AI solutions in production.

Core Technical Stack:

• Generative AI & LLMs: Extensive experience with commercial and open-source LLMs (OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Llama), Agentic frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, AutoGen, CrewAI), and LLM evaluation frameworks (LangSmith, TruLens, Ragas).
• RAG & Unstructured Data: Strong knowledge of hybrid search, re-ranking, chunking strategies, vector databases, and document intelligence workflows.
• OCR & Vision Techniques: Hands-on experience with OCR engines (Tesseract, PaddleOCR, Azure Document Intelligence) and Multi-Modal/Vision LLMs for document extraction.
• Backend: Deep expertise in Python and asynchronous frameworks (FastAPI, AsyncIO).
• Cloud & DevOps: Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (Azure / AWS), Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines.

Preferred / Good-to-Have Skills

• Experience with cloud-native data platforms (e.g., Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake, Azure SQL).
• Familiarity with cost optimization and latency reduction techniques for LLM inference (caching, semantic routing, model quantization).
• Prior experience in client-facing technical leadership or agile consulting environments.

What We Offer

• Opportunity to lead and build high-impact, state-of-the-art Generative AI systems.
• Collaborative engineering culture with room for technical ownership and direct business impact.
• Flexible work arrangements and competitive compensation package.