AI Engineer

Certa; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

PTO 49 days

Full benefits

Retirement plan

Wellness programs

Professional development

Remote workspace bonus

Annual offsites

Job summary

Certa is a remote-first AI risk management platform hiring an experienced AI Engineer to push the boundaries of LLM tech. You will build AI features, RAG pipelines, and agent systems for an enterprise platform, collaborating across product, design, and engineering.

Strong Python and cloud backend skills are essential, with hands-on generative AI experience. Work from anywhere globally, with a focus on scalable, observable systems and cutting-edge AI practices.

Qualifications

• 3+ years backend engineering experience with Python and cloud deployments.
• Hands-on experience building production AI features using LLMs and RAG.
• Strong understanding of model behavior, latency, and cost trade-offs.
• Experience with LangChain/LlamaIndex and vector databases.

Responsibilities

• Design and ship AI features including chatbots, recommendations, and automation.
• Build robust RAG pipelines for data ingestion, parsing, and embedding management.
• Develop LLM agents with planning, memory, and tool usage capabilities.
• Evaluate models for accuracy, latency, and safety; iterate prompts and data processing.
• Engineer production-grade, observable, scalable AI services on AWS.

Skills

Python

Backend design

AWS

LLM/AI

Prompt engineering

RAG

Agent systems

Tools

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Pinecone

Chroma

Job description

Certa (certa.ai) is an AI-native third-party risk management platform that unifies the full third‑party lifecycle, from onboarding through continuous monitoring and offboarding. Enterprises from the Fortune 500 to fast‑growing startups use our no‑code platform to manage vendors, suppliers, and partners across risk, compliance, and ESG. Trusted by Honeywell, Uber, MARS, and Boeing, we’ve processed over 10 million entities for 100,000+ users across 120+ countries.

We’re looking for an experienced, innovative AI Engineer to push the boundaries of LLM technology and build intelligent features for our enterprise platform. Pairing strong Python and cloud backend skills with hands‑on generative AI experience (LLMs, prompt engineering, RAG, and agents), you’ll design and deploy AI‑driven solutions from prototype to production - helping define a new class of engineering role that blends robust system design with state‑of‑the‑art AI.

What You’ll Do

• Design & ship AI features: Lead the design, development, and deployment of generative AI and LLM‑powered services — intelligent chatbots, AI‑driven recommendations, workflow automation - that deliver engaging, human‑centric experiences.

• Build RAG pipelines: Design, implement, and continuously optimize end‑to‑end RAG pipelines (data ingestion and parsing, chunking, vector indexing, prompt engineering) so our systems retrieve and use knowledge accurately.

• Build LLM agents: Develop and refine LLM‑based agentic systems for complex, multi‑step tasks - incorporating planning, memory, and tool use, and applying emerging best practices to make agents more reliable.

• Evaluate & iterate: Rigorously evaluate models and pipelines on accuracy, latency, and hallucination rate, using thorough testing and user feedback to improve prompts, parameters, and data processing.

• Engineer for production: Write clean, maintainable, testable code with strong monitoring and logging, ensuring AI components are scalable and fit the overall system architecture.

• Collaborate & innovate: Partner with product, design, and engineering to integrate AI seamlessly into products, mentor teammates on generative AI best practices, and continuously explore new AI advancements to bring into the platform.

What You’ll Need

• Software engineering: 3+ years (mid‑level) / 5+ years (senior) of backend engineering, with expert Python, scalable API/service design, strong system design, and experience deploying on AWS or similar cloud platforms.

• LLM application experience: Proven experience building real products on LLMs/generative AI (chatbots, semantic search, AI assistants), with hands‑on RAG and agent work and a solid grasp of model behavior and failure modes.

• Applied AI depth: Strong in prompt design, function calling/structured outputs, tool use, context‑window management, and the RAG levers that matter (parsing/chunking, metadata, re‑ranking, embedding/model selection); pragmatic model/provider trade‑offs (latency, cost, context, safety); product‑aligned evaluation (golden sets, prompt unit tests, offline checks, online A/Bs); and fundamentals of embeddings, tokenization, vector search, and transformers.

• Tooling: Hands‑on with LLM orchestration libraries (LangChain, LlamaIndex) and vector databases (Pinecone, Chroma, Milvus).

• Cloud & DevOps: Able to productionize LLM/RAG services as high‑availability, low‑latency backends on AWS (ECS/EKS/Lambda, API Gateway/ALB, S3, DynamoDB/Postgres, OpenSearch, SQS/SNS/Step Functions, KMS, VPC) with IaC (Terraform/CDK), strong observability, security (PII handling, encryption, least‑privilege IAM), progressive delivery (blue/green, canary, feature flags), and cost/latency strategies like caching, batching, streaming, and multi‑provider fallbacks.

• Communication & autonomy: Excellent communication to explain complex AI concepts to non‑technical stakeholders, plus a self‑directed, “figure it out” approach to troubleshooting across the stack and rapid prototyping in a fast‑paced environment.

• Nice to have: Enterprise B2B SaaS experience; full‑stack/frontend depth (modern frameworks or Node.js); complex multi‑agent or multi‑modal AI; early‑stage startup experience; and active involvement in the AI community (open source, research, or blogging).

Compensation and Benefits

• Compensation: Top of market salary

• Time off: 49 days paid time off

• Benefits: PTO, full benefits, retirement and wellness plans.

• Growth: Professional development support, remote workspace setup bonus.

• Team building: Annual company offsites in exciting locations around the world

Location

• Certa is a remote‑first company and we hire globally. We believe strongly in each team member working from the location that they choose. Should Certers wish to meet and work in person they have 3 lively office locations they can travel to.

The perfect place for Certers to collaborate, co‑work and have face to face meetings.

Why Certa

• Category leadership. Certa was named a Leader in the inaugural 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Third‑Party Risk Management Tools - recognition that we’re defining the category, not following it.

• Industry recognition. We’ve been honored across the analyst and awards landscape, including Top Tech and Customer Value distinctions in The Hackett Group’s 2026 Risk Management SolutionMap, the ProcureTech100 (Advanced AI and Risk Management categories), and Best Overall eProcurement Software in the FinTech Breakthrough Awards.

• A top place to work. Certa was named one of Forbes’ Best Startup Employers in the US. We’re a fast‑growing company where you’ll wear many hats, ship quickly, and shape decisions that matter.

• Real scale with strong backing. We’ve processed over 10 million entities for 100,000+ users across 120+ countries. We’re well‑funded by leading investors including Fin Capital, Vertex Ventures, and Point72 Ventures, on the back of an oversubscribed Series B, headed towards Series C.

We’re excited to meet you!