AI Engineer

Friant & Associates, LLC; San Leandro (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

Dental insurance

Health insurance

Paid time off

Vision insurance

Employee discount

Flexible spending account

Job summary

Friant & Associates, LLC in San Leandro, CA is seeking a hands-on AI/ML engineer to design, deploy, and maintain scalable AI-powered solutions that improve operational efficiency and business intelligence. You will work across architecture, development, governance, and monitoring the full AI lifecycle.

The role requires 3+ years of hands-on production AI/ML experience, strong Python/SQL, and familiarity with frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Hugging Face.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, AI, data science, software engineering, or related field (Master’s preferred).
• 3+ years hands-on experience deploying AI/ML in production environments.
• Strong Python and SQL; experience with REST APIs and at least one web framework (FastAPI/Flask).
• Experience with ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn) and NLP/LLM tech.
• Hands-on generative AI, vector DBs, cloud platforms, and MLOps practices.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy AI/ML solutions addressing business challenges.
• Develop predictive analytics, classification, and automation models.
• Create AI applications with large language models and RAG architectures.
• Develop AI agents to automate workflows and integrate with enterprise apps.
• Monitor performance, governance, and lifecycle of AI deployments.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Data Science, Software Engineering, or related field

Tools

Python

SQL

Git/GitHub

REST APIs

FastAPI/Flask

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Scikit-learn

Hugging Face Transformers

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Semantic Kernel

MLOps tooling

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Build and deploy AI that improves how the business operates at Friant & Associates, LLC. This hands-on role in San Leandro, CA focuses on designing, developing, deploying, and maintaining scalable AI-powered solutions that support operational efficiency, business intelligence, customer engagement, and process automation. You will work across the full AI lifecycle, from architecture and development through monitoring, governance, and continuous improvement.

What you will do

• Design, build, and deploy AI and machine learning solutions that address business challenges and improve operational efficiency.
• Develop and optimize predictive analytics, classification, recommendation systems, and automation models using machine learning and deep learning.
• Build applications using large language models, Generative AI, and intelligent agents.
• Design Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures that securely connect enterprise knowledge bases and business systems.
• Develop and manage AI agents to automate workflows, support business operations, and improve employee productivity.
• Create intelligent document processing solutions to extract, classify, and analyze structured and unstructured data.
• Implement conversational AI solutions including virtual assistants, copilots, and chatbot platforms.
• Design workflow automation using AI orchestration platforms, APIs, function calling, and tool-use architectures.
• Build and maintain data pipelines for model training, inference, evaluation, and analytics.
• Integrate AI solutions with CRM, ERP, customer support, eCommerce, knowledgebases, and other enterprise applications.
• Develop and maintain APIs, microservices, webhooks, middleware, and event-driven architectures supporting AI deployment.
• Partner with data engineers, IT, and business teams to define practical, scalable AI architecture.
• Monitor model and application performance, reliability, quality, cost, and business impact.
• Apply MLOps and LLMOps practices for deployment, version control, automated evaluation, monitoring, and lifecycle management.
• Implement responsible AI, privacy, security, data governance, and access-control requirements; establish guardrails and risk controls.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, architecture diagrams, operating procedures, and user guidance.

Benefits

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance
• Employee discount

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (Master’s degree preferred).
• 3+ years of hands‑on experience developing and deploying AI or machine learning solutions in production environments.
• Strong proficiency in Python and practical experience with SQL, Git/GitHub, REST APIs, and at least one application framework such as FastAPI or Flask.
• Experience with machine learning frameworks including TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn, or Hugging Face Transformers.
• Strong understanding of supervised and unsupervised learning, deep learning, neural networks, natural language processing, feature engineering, and model evaluation.
• Hands‑on enterprise Generative AI and LLM experience, including technologies such as OpenAI APIs, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic APIs, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, MCP, prompt engineering, fine‑tuning, function calling, AI agents, and RAG.
• Experience with vector databases or search platforms such as Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, Chroma, or Azure AI Search.
• Experience with at least one major cloud platform: Microsoft Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, MLflow, model versioning, observability, performance monitoring, or automated evaluation frameworks.

Location and work setup: In person in San Leandro, CA (onsite). This is a full-time, Monday-Friday schedule with occasional early morning, evening, or weekend duties. There may be occasional needs to work outside San Leandro hours. Travel to the Suffolk, VA plant/office may be required in rare situations for periods of up to one week.

Work environment notes: The role operates in both a professional office environment and production environment when necessary, and appropriate personal protective equipment will be required when visiting production areas. The employee is regularly required to communicate, use a computer and related equipment, and remain seated or stand for extended periods.

Position details: Full-time. No supervisory responsibilities.

Application questions: Will you now or in the future require visa sponsorship? Are you located in the Bay Area/California?