AI Engineer

Avathon; Pleasanton (CA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock Option Grants

Medical Coverage

401k with Employer Match

Monthly Technology Allowance

Pleasanton office near CA

Job summary

Avathon is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to design, develop, and deploy scalable AI systems focused on Generative AI and LLMs across industrial applications. You will bridge research and production to deliver impactful solutions in forecasting, routing, anomaly detection, and predictive maintenance.

The role requires 3–5 years of hands-on AI engineering experience, strong Python and ML framework skills, and experience deploying LLM-based applications in production.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, AI, or related field.
• 3–5 years of hands-on AI/ML engineering experience in production.
• Strong experience building and deploying LLM-based applications in production environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy production-grade AI/ML systems with focus on Generative AI and LLM-powered apps.
• Develop and optimize end-to-end LLM pipelines including RAG, fine-tuning, and prompt orchestration.
• Build scalable backend services and APIs for AI applications
• Implement and productionize transformer-based models and GenAI workflows for enterprise use cases
• Design vector search systems, embedding pipelines, and retrieval frameworks
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Business teams to translate challenges into AI solutions
• Drive experimentation, benchmarking, model evaluation, and performance optimization
• Improve inference efficiency, latency, cost, and reliability of deployed AI systems
• Establish guardrails and responsible AI practices for production deployments
• Contribute to MLOps workflows including CI/CD and model lifecycle management
• Stay current with LLM advancements and applied AI engineering

Skills

Python

LLM deployment

PyTorch

Prompt engineering

API design

Cloud platforms

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD

AWS

GCP

Azure

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Job description

Who We Are & Why Join Us

Avathon is the leading Industrial AI autonomy platform, helping customers across heavy industries – energy, mining, manufacturing, aerospace, defense, and logistics – accelerate the journey toward autonomous operations. Our platform is built on a Computational Knowledge Graph foundation that contextualizes and connects operational data across siloed systems, bringing together time series, structured, unstructured, and machine vision data to power AI-driven applications in asset performance management, supply chain intelligence, visual AI, and global trade management. With capabilities spanning digital twins, normal behavior modeling, natural language processing, and computer vision, Avathon delivers real-time predictive intelligence and agentic decision-making at industrial scale.

Cutting-Edge AI Innovation – Join a team at the forefront of AI, developing groundbreaking solutions that shape the future. High-Growth Environment – Thrive in a fast-scaling startup where agility, collaboration, and rapid professional growth are the norm. Meaningful Impact – Work on AI-driven projects that drive real change across industries and improve lives.

Learn more at: avathon.com

About the Role

Senior AI Engineer – Generative AI & LLMs

At Avathon, we are building cutting-edge AI solutions that transform operations across asset-intensive industries such as Supply Chain, Logistics, Energy, Mining, Aerospace, and Industrial Manufacturing. As an AI Engineer, you will play a critical role in designing, developing, and deploying scalable AI systems with a strong focus on Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), and production-grade machine learning applications.

This role is ideal for someone with strong engineering depth who can bridge research and production—building robust AI platforms, optimizing LLM workflows, and delivering high-impact solutions across forecasting, route optimization, anomaly detection, predictive maintenance, and intelligent automation.

With 3–5 years of hands‑on industry experience, you are expected to bring expertise in AI system design, ML engineering, LLM deployment, and scalable software development within fast-paced startup environments.

You Will

• Design, build, and deploy production-grade AI/ML systems with strong emphasis on Generative AI and LLM-powered applications
• Develop and optimize end-to-end LLM pipelines including RAG architectures, fine-tuning, prompt orchestration, evaluation, and observability
• Build scalable backend services and APIs for AI applications using modern engineering best practices
• Implement and productionize transformer-based models and GenAI workflows for enterprise use cases
• Design vector search systems, embedding pipelines, and retrieval frameworks for knowledge-intensive applications
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Business teams to translate operational challenges into scalable AI solutions
• Drive experimentation, benchmarking, model evaluation, and performance optimization with scientific rigor
• Improve inference efficiency, latency optimization, cost management, and reliability of deployed AI systems
• Establish guardrails, hallucination detection, monitoring, and responsible AI practices for production deployments
• Contribute to MLOps workflows including CI/CD, model lifecycle management, observability, and cloud deployment
• Stay current with the latest advancements in LLMs, agentic systems, foundation models, and applied AI engineering

You’ll Have

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, or a related technical field
• 3–5 years of hands‑on industry experience in AI Engineering, Machine Learning Engineering, Applied AI, or related roles
• Strong experience building and deploying LLM‑based applications in production environments
• Solid expertise with Python and modern AI/ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar
• Strong understanding of transformer architectures, LLM fine‑tuning, prompt engineering, RAG systems, and vector databases
• Experience building scalable APIs and backend systems supporting AI workflows
• Familiarity with cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure
• Strong software engineering fundamentals including system design, debugging, performance optimization, and production reliability
• Experience with containerization, deployment pipelines, and collaborative engineering environments
• Strong analytical thinking, ownership mindset, and ability to work in ambiguous, fast‑moving startup environments
• Strong communication skills and ability to work cross‑functionally with technical and business stakeholder

Preferred Qualifications

• Exposure to Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector databases, or embedding‑based search systems
• Familiarity with LLM observability and evaluation tools (e.g., Langfuse, LangSmith, Arize Phoenix, Weights & Biases)
• Hands‑on experience with practical LLM deployment – prompt versioning, cost/latency tracking, guardrails, or hallucination detection
• Exposure to LLM evaluation frameworks (e.g., RAGAS, DeepEval) or LLM‑as‑judge evaluation patterns
• Basic understanding of MLOps practices and model lifecycle management
• Experience working on applied AI projects in academic, internship, or startup settings
• Interest in industrial AI and asset‑intensive environments
• Industry exposure in one or more of the following domains: Mining, Oil & Gas, Aerospace, Supply Chain, Logistics, or Renewable Energy

Interview Process

As part of the interview process, you will be asked to complete a technical assessment.

Benefits & Perks

What are the benefits and perks at Avathon? Below are some highlights we offer to our U.S. full‑time employees – we’d love to connect and share more!

• Evolving culture with the opportunity to drive new ideas and technology
• Stock Option Grants
• Medical Coverage and Parental Leave Plans
• 401k with Employer Match
• Monthly Technology Allowance
• Newly renovated office space located near Pleasanton, CA – including fully stocked beverage and snack areas

Contract and temporary roles are not eligible for the above benefits.

Compensation

Pay Range: $110k - $130k salary annually. Pay for this position is based on a number of factors including geographic location and may vary depending on job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Location: This role is not remote. Candidates must be based in the Bay Area, CA and are expected to report to our Pleasanton office 5 days a week.

Avathon is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, pregnancy, genetic information, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other protected category under applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Avathon is committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruiting process. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please contact us to discuss how we can assist you.