AI Engineer - Nexus Black

IFS; Itasca (IL); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible paid time off

Medical, dental, & vision insurance

401K with company contribution

Tuition assistance

Job summary

IFS in Itasca, Illinois, is seeking an AI Engineer with a builder’s mindset to develop AI agents and workflows for IFS Nexus Black. You will rapidly turn customer problems into working prototypes and scale these into reliable products.

This role involves collaboration across the stack including prompting, backend services, and customer interaction. With a salary range of $90,000 to $100,000 plus bonus, IFS offers flexible paid time off and comprehensive insurance benefits.

Qualifications

• 4–8+ years as a software/AI engineer, with product experience in startup-like environments.
• Ability to build production services and integrate with external systems/APIs.
• Hands-on experience with prompt engineering and observability for AI systems.

Responsibilities

• Rapidly prototype AI agents and guided workflows for customer problems.
• Design and implement cloud-native backend services.
• Contribute to developer experience with reusable agents and internal documentation.

Skills

Python

TypeScript

LLM systems production

Evaluation techniques for AI

Vector databases

Backend services

Excellent communication

Job description

Job Description

We are seeking an AI Engineer with a builder’s mindset to bring cutting‑edge AI agents and workflows into production for IFS Nexus Black. You’ll turn ambiguous customer problems into working prototypes in days/weeks, iterate in the field, and scale the winners into reliable products.

You will work across the stack—prompting, tools, retrieval, evaluation, guardrails, and backend services—collaborating closely with product, design, and data engineering. Expect high autonomy, direct exposure to customers, and a fast loop from idea → demo → production.

Key Responsibilities

• Rapidly prototype AI agents and guided workflows that solve concrete customer problems; ship thin slices, instrument, and iterate with real usage.
• Design and implement cloud‑native backend services that orchestrate prompts, tools, retrieval, and automations; own the path from POC to production.
• Build robust retrieval for LLMs (search/vector pipelines, context assembly, tool selection) in partnership with data engineering.
• Establish evaluation loops: offline/online tests, golden sets, regression checks, and human‑in‑the‑loop review to measurably improve quality and safety.
• Contribute to developer experience: reusable agents/tools, SDKs, templates, and internal documentation that speed up future builds.
• Collaborate with customers and internal stakeholders to frame problems, define success metrics, and translate insights into productizable solutions.
• Lead design discussions and code reviews; mentor teammates and raise the quality bar while keeping momentum high.

Qualifications

4–8+ years as a software/AI engineer, including shipping 0→1 products or features in startup‑like environments.

• Strong in Python (and comfortable with TypeScript); able to build production services and integrate with external systems/APIs.
• Proven experience taking LLM/agent systems to production (tool use, function calling, planning/exec, retrieval‑augmented generation).
• Hands‑on with evaluation (offline/online), prompt engineering, tracing, and observability for AI systems.
• Familiarity with vector databases/search, embeddings, and context/retrieval patterns; pragmatism about when/what to index.
• Solid backend fundamentals (services, queues, data models, CI/CD, cloud) and a bias to automate what you repeat.
• Excellent communication and product sense—able to turn fuzzy business problems into clear technical plans and measurable outcomes.
• Fast mover: comfort with ambiguity, crisp prioritization, and the judgment to ship small, safe increments quickly.
• Nice‑to‑have: open‑source contributions, hackathon wins, or a portfolio of shipped side projects; experience at both an early‑stage startup and a larger‑scale system.

What We’re Offering

• Salary Range: $90,000 to $100,000 plus bonus
• Flexible paid time off, including sick and holiday
• Medical, dental, & vision insurance
• 401K with Company contribution
• Flexible spending accounts
• Life insurance and disability benefits
• Tuition assistance
• Community involvement and volunteering events

Additional Information

We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles, while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community, we drive innovation, strengthen connections, and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best, while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran. VEVRAA Federal Contractor, Equal Opportunity Employer