AI Agent Engineer

Ochsner Health System; New Orleans (LA); Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Ochsner Health System seeks an experienced AI engineer to design and deploy production-grade agents across voice and chat channels, tightly integrating with core clinical and operational systems. You will iterate on behavior, routing, and prompts to align with workflows and regulatory standards.

You will mentor peers, partner with operations, compliance, and IT, and continuously improve AI automation opportunities and agent performance in a healthcare setting.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; preferred fields include Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science.
• Software programming skills in multiple languages are expected.
• Excellent verbal and written communication; strong interpersonal abilities.
• Excellent critical thinking and problem-solving; able to handle ambiguity and complex challenges.
• Willingness to travel occasionally and work nights or weekends as needed.

Responsibilities

• Design and build production-grade AI agents across voice and chat channels.
• Own deep integrations with Ochsner's core clinical and operational systems.
• Iterate on agent behavior, routing logic, and prompt design following workflows and compliance.
• Stress-test agents against real-world patient interactions to improve resolution rates.
• Collaborate with clinical operations, compliance, and IT to meet regulatory requirements.
• Mentor AI engineering peers and the Epic team; provide technical guidance.
• Perform other related duties as required.

Skills

Programming skills

Verbal & written communication

Interpersonal skills

Critical thinking

Ambiguity tolerance

Self-motivation

Take responsibility

Adaptability under stress

Flexible hours travel

Education

Bachelor's degree

CS/Software Eng/Data Science preferred

Tools

LangSmith

Weights & Biases

Datadog

Hugging Face

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Exceptional care starts with exceptional people.

For us, this is more than a job– it's a calling. It's waking up each day, looking for ways to make a difference with a compassionate, inclusive and talented team. Ochsner empowers you to discover your passion, reach your potential, and Pursue Your Purpose. Exceptional care starts with exceptional people and teams. Together we are leading the way.

This job modifies and creates iO products through a process of understanding/observing, designing, refining, encoding, testing and installing. Serves as the primary resource for the creation, maturation and implementation of innovative solutions to problems that affect all aspects of efficiency, clinical outcomes and financial savings. Serves as a mentor and trusted advisor to the Epic team and entire IS department.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential duties.

This job description is a summary of the primary duties and responsibilities of the job and position. It is not intended to be a comprehensive or all-inclusive listing of duties and responsibilities. Contents are subject to change at the company's discretion.

Remote with occasional travel.

Location:

New Orleans, LA

Location Facility:

Business Office - Benson Tower

Location Type:

Remote

Job Number:

REQ_00270646

Education

Required - Bachelor's degree.

Preferred - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science, or a related field of science.

Work Experience

Required - None.

Preferred - 5 years of experience in healthcare IT, Epic systems, or enterprise AI/ML platforms.

Certifications

Preferred - Epic certification in at least one clinical application.

Knowledge Skills and Abilities (KSAs)

• Software programming skills in multiple languages.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills and ability to present information clearly and professionally.
• Strong interpersonal skills.
• Exceptional critical thinking skills and ability to formulate solutions to complex problems.
• Ability to look at problems in unconventional ways, generate new and useful ideas, analyze which ideas are worth pursuing and which are not, and articulate new ideas to others and convince others that ideas are worth pursuing.
• Ability to tolerate ambiguity, overcome obstacles, and take reasonable risks.
• Ability to be self motivated, solve problems, and take 100% responsibility for his/her actions.
• Ability to work under stressful situations with frequent interruptions and changes in priorities.
• Ability to work variable hours, including nights, evenings and weekends and occasional out of town travel.

Preferred:

• Hands-on experience with large language models (LLMs) and generative AI platforms (e.g., Google Gemini, OpenAI GPT, Anthropic Claude, open-source models via Hugging Face).
• Experience with prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agentic AI design patterns (tool use, multiturn reasoning, function calling).
• Familiarity with voice AI platforms and telephony integration (e.g., Cisco, Eleven Labs or similar).
• Experience with healthcare interoperability standards (HL7 FHIR, Epic APIs, CDS Hooks).
• Knowledge of healthcare compliance frameworks including HIPAA, patient consent management, and clinical data governance.
• Experience with MLOps and AI observability tools for monitoring agent performance, latency, and safety in production (e.g., LangSmith, Weights & Biases, Datadog).
• Familiarity with conversation design best practices, dialog management frameworks, and natural language understanding (NLU) evaluation.
• Experience building CI/CD pipelines for AI agent deployment, including automated testing, regression suites, and canary release strategies.
• Understanding of contact center operations and workforce management as they relate to AI-assisted call handling and escalation.
• Experience with cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or Azure) and containerized deployment (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Prior experience in a healthcare system, health plan, or health-tech startup environment.

Job Duties

• Design and build production-grade AI agents across voice and chat channels, including conversation flow, tool orchestration, and safe escalation logic.
• Own deep integrations with Ochsner's core clinical and operational systems, enabling agents to take real action — not just answer questions.
• Author and iterate on agent behavior, routing logic, and prompt design grounded in Ochsner workflows and compliance requirements.
• Stress-test and refine agents against real-world patient interactions, continuously improving resolution rates and experience quality.
• Partner with clinical operations, compliance, and IT to ensure agents meet regulatory, consent, and audit requirements.
• Perform in-depth analysis of business processes/functions and associated technologies to identify AI automation opportunities.
• Maintain and enhance professional competencies in AI/ML, healthcare IT, and industry best practices.
• Mentor and provide technical guidance to the Epic team, AI engineering peers, and other areas of the IS department.
• Perform other related duties as required.

The above statements describe the general nature and level of work only. They are not an exhaustive list of all required responsibilities, duties, and skills. Other duties may be added, or this description amended at any time.

Remains knowledgeable on current federal, state and local laws, accreditation standards or regulatory agency requirements that apply to the assigned area of responsibility and ensures compliance with all such laws, regulations and standards.

This employer maintains and complies with its Compliance & Privacy Program and Standards of Conduct, including the immediate reporting of any known or suspected unethical or questionable behaviors or conduct; patient/employee safety, patient privacy, and/or other compliance-related concerns.