Senior Python / Conversational AI Engineer

Zorba AI; Maharashtra; On-site; INR 2,500,000 - 5,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Zorba AI is seeking an experienced Conversational AI engineer to design, implement, and optimize stateful, multi-step conversational workflows. You will drive RAG tuning, escalation logic, and integration with backend systems, while ensuring secure REST API interactions and robust testing.

You will own deployment pipelines, monitor production systems, and collaborate across engineering, product, QA, security and infrastructure teams to deliver reliable GenAI solutions at scale.

Qualifications

• 10+ years IT/software engineering experience.
• 5+ years of professional Python development.
• Strong hands-on experience building stateful, multi-step applications.
• Proven experience with LLM/conversational AI or workflow orchestration.
• Strong API security and integration background.
• Strong automated testing discipline.
• Hands-on CI/CD ownership.
• Experience owning production deployments and incident resolution.

Responsibilities

• Build and modify conversational flows across dialog, orchestration and knowledge layers.
• Design and optimize stateful, multi-step workflows, including session and context management.
• Perform RAG and knowledge-retrieval tuning to improve response quality and relevance.
• Design and maintain escalation logic, including transfer conditions, routing destinations, context payloads and reason-code registration.
• Work with LLM-driven conversational systems, including prompt behavior, guardrails and model-generated content.
• Integrate backend systems through established handler/API layers.
• Develop secure REST API integrations using appropriate authentication and certificate-management mechanisms.
• Author and maintain automated unit tests, mocks and platform-level conversational test cases.
• Maintain comprehensive regression test suites.
• Build and own CI/CD pipelines covering validation, automated testing and gated promotion across environments.
• Follow Git-based branching, release and environment-promotion strategies.
• Own application deployment and rollback procedures.
• Act as a first responder for production incidents.
• Diagnose production issues independently using logs, traces and metrics.
• Identify root cause and implement permanent fixes with corresponding regression tests.
• Manage configuration and feature-flag governance.
• Maintain design, state, test and implementation documentation aligned with actual system behavior.
• Analyze and reconcile platform changes originating outside version control and determine whether the impact is behavioral or cosmetic.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, QA, security and infrastructure teams.

Skills

Python

REST APIs

JSON

API integrations

OOP

Asynchronous programming

LLM / Conversational AI

Prompt engineering

RAG / knowledge retrieval

Context management

Multi-step orchestration

Escalation & routing logic

Production incident handling

Tools

Git

GitHub Actions

CI/CD pipelines

OAuth 2.0

JWT

mTLS

Job description

• Build and modify conversational flows across dialog, orchestration and knowledge layers.
• Design and optimize stateful, multi-step workflows, including session and context management.
• Perform RAG and knowledge-retrieval tuning to improve response quality and relevance.
• Design and maintain escalation logic, including transfer conditions, routing destinations, context payloads and reason-code registration.
• Work with LLM-driven conversational systems, including prompt behavior, guardrails and model-generated content.
• Integrate backend systems through established handler/API layers.
• Develop secure REST API integrations using appropriate authentication and certificate-management mechanisms.
• Author and maintain automated unit tests, mocks and platform-level conversational test cases.
• Build and own CI/CD pipelines covering validation, automated testing and gated promotion across environments.
• Follow Git-based branching, release and environment-promotion strategies.
• Own application deployment and rollback procedures.
• Act as a first responder for production incidents.
• Diagnose production issues independently using logs, traces and metrics.
• Identify root cause and implement permanent fixes with corresponding regression tests.
• Manage configuration and feature-flag governance.
• Maintain design, state, test and implementation documentation aligned with actual system behavior.
• Analyze and reconcile platform changes originating outside version control and determine whether the impact is behavioral or cosmetic.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, QA, security and infrastructure teams.

Core Responsibilities

• Build and modify conversational flows across dialog, orchestration and knowledge layers.
• Design and optimize stateful, multi-step workflows, including session and context management.
• Perform RAG and knowledge-retrieval tuning to improve response quality and relevance.
• Design and maintain escalation logic, including transfer conditions, routing destinations, context payloads and reason-code registration.
• Work with LLM-driven conversational systems, including prompt behavior, guardrails and model-generated content.
• Integrate backend systems through established handler/API layers.
• Develop secure REST API integrations using appropriate authentication and certificate-management mechanisms.
• Author and maintain automated unit tests, mocks and platform-level conversational test cases.
• Maintain comprehensive regression test suites.
• Build and own CI/CD pipelines covering validation, automated testing and gated promotion across environments.
• Follow Git-based branching, release and environment-promotion strategies.
• Own application deployment and rollback procedures.
• Act as a first responder for production incidents.
• Diagnose production issues independently using logs, traces and metrics.
• Identify root cause and implement permanent fixes with corresponding regression tests.
• Manage configuration and feature-flag governance.
• Maintain design, state, test and implementation documentation aligned with actual system behavior.
• Analyze and reconcile platform changes originating outside version control and determine whether the impact is behavioral or cosmetic.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, QA, security and infrastructure teams.

Required Technical Expertise

Programming

• Python
• REST APIs
• JSON
• API integrations
• Object-oriented programming
• Asynchronous/event-driven programming

Conversational AI / GenAI

• Conversational workflow development
• LLM-based applications
• Prompt engineering
• Guardrails
• RAG / knowledge retrieval
• Context and session management
• Multi-step/stateful orchestration
• Escalation and routing logic

API & Security

• REST APIs
• OAuth 2.0
• JWT / JWT Client Assertions
• mTLS
• SSL/TLS certificates
• Certificate lifecycle management
• Secrets management
• Secure API authentication

Testing

• PyTest or equivalent
• Unit testing
• Mocking
• Integration testing
• API testing
• Regression testing
• Conversation/platform-level testing

DevOps

• Git
• GitHub Actions / GitLab CI / Azure DevOps
• CI/CD pipeline development
• Branching strategies
• Environment promotion
• Automated validation and deployment
• Rollback

Production & Observability

• Log analysis
• Metrics
• Distributed tracing
• Production incident management
• Root-cause analysis
• Performance troubleshooting
• Monitoring and observability

Preferred Candidate Profile

• 10+ years overall IT/software engineering experience
• 5+ years of professional Python development
• Strong hands-on experience building stateful, multi-step applications
• Proven experience with LLM/conversational AI or workflow orchestration
• Strong API security and integration background
• Strong automated testing discipline
• Hands-on CI/CD ownership
• Experience owning production deployments and incident resolution
• Ability to understand and extend an existing SDK/framework without modifying its core
• Strong communication and documentation skills