AI Transformation Lead

RPL International; Fort Lauderdale (FL); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

RPL International is seeking an AI Software Engineer Team Lead to join a growing technology team focused on secure, production-ready AI applications and backend workflows. The role is hands-on, emphasizing Python, cloud technologies, and AI services to automate complex processes.

The ideal candidate will design systems around non-deterministic AI models, provide technical leadership, and mentor engineers while delivering scalable, secure software in production.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.
• 3–7+ years of software engineering experience, backend/app focus.
• Strong Python development experience.
• Solid understanding of software fundamentals, APIs, databases, data structures, and system design.
• Experience designing and developing production apps in a cloud environment.
• Strong SQL and relational DB knowledge including schema design.
• Experience with AI/LLM applications and architecting around non-deterministic models.
• Understanding of RAG, embeddings, vector search, and AI workflows.
• Experience with software testing, debugging, monitoring, and production troubleshooting.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers or provide technical leadership.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy backend apps and AI-powered workflows using Python and cloud tech.
• Build systems integrating LLMs, APIs, databases, documents, and enterprise data sources to automate processes.
• Develop AI apps using RAG, embeddings, vector databases, agents, and orchestration frameworks.
• Design scalable, reliable architectures including asynchronous and distributed workflows.
• Create solutions for document analysis, information extraction, knowledge retrieval, and AI-assisted processes.
• Establish testing, QA, validation, and observability strategies for AI apps.
• Implement production observability, logging, tracing, monitoring, and error handling.
• Collaborate on authentication, authorization, data access, and security with infra/security teams.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior engineers; participate in code/architecture reviews.
• Translate requirements into practical technical solutions; communicate decisions to technical/non-technical stakeholders.
• Participate in Agile/Scrum, CI/CD, and continuous improvement.
• Evaluate AI-generated code and solutions for production quality and reliability.
• Collaborate with infra, security, process analysts, and business stakeholders to deliver enterprise apps.

Skills

Python

APIs

Databases

System design

Cloud

AI/LLM

RAG

Embeddings

Vector DB

CI/CD

DevOps

Security

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/related

Tools

GCP

Vertex AI

Gemini

MCP

AI orchestration frameworks

Job description

Our client seeking an AI Software Engineer Team Lead to join a growing technology team focused on developing secure, production-ready AI applications and backend workflows. This is a hands‑on software engineering role focused on using Python, cloud technologies, and modern AI services to automate complex business processes.

The ideal candidate is a strong software engineer who can design systems around non-deterministic AI models, make sound architectural decisions, and provide technical leadership to a developing engineering team. Experience building AI applications is important, but machine learning model development and predictive modeling are not the primary focus.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy backend applications and AI-powered workflows using Python and cloud technologies.
• Build systems that integrate LLMs, APIs, databases, documents, and enterprise data sources to automate complex business processes.
• Develop AI applications using technologies such as RAG, vector databases, embeddings, agents, and AI orchestration frameworks.
• Design scalable and reliable software architectures, including asynchronous and distributed workflows.
• Develop solutions for use cases such as document analysis, information extraction, knowledge retrieval, and AI-assisted business processes.
• Establish appropriate testing, QA, evaluation, and validation strategies for AI applications and non-deterministic systems.
• Implement production observability, logging, tracing, monitoring, error handling, and performance controls.
• Design appropriate authentication, authorization, data-access, and security requirements in partnership with infrastructure and security teams.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior software engineers and contribute to code and architecture reviews.
• Translate business requirements into practical technical solutions and communicate architecture and technical decisions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Participate in Agile/Scrum development, sprint planning, CI/CD, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Evaluate AI-generated code and solutions critically, ensuring production-quality software through sound engineering practices.
• Collaborate with infrastructure, security, process analysts, and business stakeholders to deliver reliable enterprise applications.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, Data Science, Mathematics, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
• 3-7+ years of professional software engineering experience, preferably with backend or application development.
• Strong professional experience with Python.
• Strong understanding of software engineering fundamentals, object-oriented programming, APIs, databases, data structures, and system design.
• Experience designing and developing production applications in a cloud environment.
• Strong SQL and relational database knowledge, including database schema design.
• Experience working with AI/LLM applications and understanding how to architect software around non-deterministic models.
• Understanding of RAG, embeddings, vector search/vector databases, and AI application workflows.
• Experience with software testing, debugging, monitoring, and production troubleshooting.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers or provide technical leadership.
• Preferred Qualifications
• Experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Experience with Vertex AI and Gemini or comparable LLM platforms.
• Experience with MCP, AI agents, or AI orchestration frameworks.
• Experience with asynchronous processing, distributed systems, queues, event-driven architecture, or workflow orchestration.
• Experience in financial services, banking, healthcare, or another highly regulated industry.
• Experience with CI/CD, DevOps, and infrastructure-as-code.
• Experience implementing AI evaluation, observability, and model/application monitoring.
• Knowledge of vector databases and semantic search.
• Spanish/English bilingual proficiency is a plus.

What We're Looking For

The ideal candidate is a hands‑on senior software engineer who is ready to step into a technical leadership role. You should be comfortable taking an ambiguous business problem, designing the architecture, building the solution, testing it, and supporting it in production.

You should also be able to explain why you made your technical decisions, identify weaknesses in AI-generated code, and push back when a proposed solution does not meet production, security, or reliability requirements.

This is not a traditional data science or machine learning modeling position. The focus is on software engineering, backend AI application development, system architecture, and technical leadership.