Principal AI-ML Engineer

Spot Your Leaders; Hyderabad; Hybrid; INR 1,000,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Spot Your Leaders in Hyderabad is seeking a Principal AI-ML Engineer to design and deploy production-grade AI systems, with a strong focus on LLMs, RAG pipelines, and MLOps practices. You will work closely with engineering and product teams to build scalable, secure, and high-performance AI-powered applications, driving model development, deployment, and platform integration.

Strong Python skills and hands-on experience with GenAI/LLMs are required; occasional remote work may be possible for

Qualifications

• 1015 years of software engineering experience.
• Strong programming skills in Python (mandatory).
• Experience in building production-grade ML systems (not just notebooks).
• Hands-on experience with AI/GenAI applications including LLMs and RAG pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement end-to-end ML pipelines (data ingestion, training, evaluation, deployment).
• Architect LLM-based solutions using prompting strategies, RAG, and agentic workflows.
• Define scalable patterns for ML/GenAI application development.
• Work on data analysis, quality benchmarking, lineage detection, and dataset readiness (vector stores).
• Model training, evaluation, hyperparameter tuning, and feature engineering.
• Fine-tuning of LLMs and prompt optimization; evaluate open vs closed weights.
• Implement MLOps: model versioning, experiment tracking, monitoring, retraining pipelines, drift detection, and token costs.
• Deploy AI solutions in production (APIs, batch, streaming) and ensure security/governance.
• Collaborate with product/engineering teams; mentor engineers on AI/GenAI best practices.

Skills

Python

ML systems

Generative AI

LLMs

RAG pipelines

MLOps

Cloud

Vector DBs

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Milvus

FAISS

Kubeflow

MLflow

Job description

Principal AI-ML Engineer

Role Overview

We are looking for an AI/ML Architect with strong hands-on experience in Python-based ML systems and Generative AI solutions. This role focuses on designing and deploying production-grade AI systems, with a strong emphasis on LLMs, RAG pipelines, and MLOps practices.

The ideal candidate will have 1415 years of overall experience, including at least 10 years of relevant experience in AI/ML and Generative AI.

You will work closely with engineering and product teams to build scalable, secure, and high-performance AI-powered applications.

Key Responsibilities

AI/ML System Design

• Design and implement end-to-end ML pipelines (data ingestion training evaluation deployment).
• Architect LLM-based solutions using advanced prompting strategies, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and agentic workflows.
• Define scalable patterns for ML/ GenAI application development.

Model Development & Optimization

• Work on data analysis, quality benchmarking, lineage detection and curation, ingestion into vector stores
• Work on statistical model training, evaluation, hyper-parameter tuning, feature engineering
• Work on fine-tuning of LLMs for specific tasks and prompt optimization (no expectation to build models from scratch at large scale).
• Evaluate and select appropriate models (open weights or closed weights).
• Collaborate with data teams for feature engineering and dataset readiness.

MLOps & Deployment

• Implement MLOps best practices:
• Model versioning
• Experiment tracking
• Monitoring & retraining pipelines
• Prompt versioning
• Drift detection
• Token costs
• Handle model deployment in production environments (APIs, batch, streaming).
• Ensure performance, scalability, and reliability of AI systems.

Platform & Integration

• Integrate AI solutions with existing microservices and backend systems.
• Work with vector databases, caching, and APIs for GenAI use cases.
• Ensure security and governance in AI deployments.

Collaboration

• Partner with product managers and engineers to translate business problems into AI solutions.
• Mentor engineers on AI/ML and GenAI best practices.

Must Have Skills

Core

• 1015 years of experience in software engineering .
• Strong programming skills in Python (mandatory).
• Experience in building production-grade ML systems (not just notebooks).

AI/ML & GenAI

• Hands-on experience with:
• Data Analysis and curation
• Feature engineering
• Statistical model training, evaluation & hyper parameter tuning
• LLMs / GenAI applications
• RAG pipeline design
• Prompt engineering & model tuning
• Experience with frameworks like Tensorflow, PyTorch, Sci-kit, LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar.
• Understanding of embeddings, vector search, and retrieval systems.
• Exposure to custom model fine-tuning (good to have, not mandatory).

MLOps & Deployment

• Experience with:
• Model deployment (API-based or batch)
• CI/CD pipelines for ML
• Monitoring and logging
• Familiarity with tools like MLflow, Kubeflow, or similar (any one is fine).

Cloud & Scalability

• Experience with at least one cloud: AWS / Azure / GCP.
• Understanding of scalable system design and APIs.

Data & Systems

• Working knowledge of databases (SQL/NoSQL).
• Experience with vector databases (Milvus, Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, etc.).

Good to Have (Optional)

• Experience in AIOps or AI for observability/use-case automation.
• Background in data engineering or analytics pipelines.
• Exposure to Kubernetes/Docker.
• Experience in telecom or high-scale product environments.

Location

Hyderabad, Bengaluru (exception: remote if the candidate is extremely good).Some travel will be needed in this position