Applied AI Engineer

Humana; Frisco (TX); On-site; USD 142,300 - 195,700; Full time

Job summary

Humana is seeking Senior AI Software Engineers to design and deliver production‑grade, Python‑based AI services at scale. You will own end‑to‑end development from API design to deployment and monitoring, collaborating with data scientists and fellow engineers to ensure robust operations.

The role emphasizes engineering excellence, secure‑by‑default design, and continuous improvement, with on‑site collaboration in designated tech markets and a competitive pay range.

Qualifications

• 5+ years building production Python applications and services.
• Experience integrating LLMs and prompt design.
• Experience deploying and operating backend services on cloud.
• Strong API design, testing, and CI/CD practices.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate production services using LLMs, RAG, and agentic workflows.
• Architect scalable APIs and backend systems exposing AI capabilities.
• Build data/inference pipelines for large datasets and model outputs.
• Own reliability, performance, cost, and observability of APIs and pipelines.
• Drive best practices: code reviews, testing, CI/CD, secure-by-default design.
• Stay current with LLMs and AI infra; translate into practical improvements.

Skills

Python production software

LLM integration

API design

Cloud platforms

CI/CD pipelines

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Master’s degree (3+ years relevant experience)

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Git

FastAPI/Flask

Job description

Become a part of our caring community. We are seeking Senior AI Software Engineers who thrive on building production‑grade, Python‑based systems that put generative AI in the hands of real users – not just prototypes or notebooks. The ideal candidate is first and foremost a strong software engineer, with hands‑on experience designing, shipping, and operating LLM‑powered applications at scale.

As a Senior Engineer, you will own the design and delivery of AI‑powered services end to end – from API and system design, through implementation and deployment, to monitoring and continuous improvement in production. You will partner with data scientists and fellow engineers, but your primary focus is on engineering excellence: well‑architected services, reliable pipelines, clean code, and robust operations.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate production services that leverage Large Language Models, RAG, and agentic workflows to solve real business problems.
• Architect and maintain scalable, well‑tested APIs and backend systems that expose AI capabilities to downstream applications.
• Build and maintain robust data and inference pipelines for ingestion, processing, transformation, and serving of large datasets and model outputs.
• Own the reliability, performance, cost, and observability of deployed APIs and pipelines (logging, metrics, tracing, alerting, evaluations).
• Drive engineering best practices across the team: code review, testing, CI/CD, documentation, and secure‑by‑default design.
• Stay current with advancements in LLMs, agent frameworks, and AI infrastructure, and translate them into pragmatic engineering improvements.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative discipline (e.g., Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field) with a minimum of 5 years of professional software engineering experience, or a Master’s Degree with at least 3 years of relevant experience.
• 5+ years of experience developing production Python‑based applications and services intended for use by others – not just models, scripts, or analyses.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: API and system design, data structures, testing, code review, and debugging distributed systems.
• Proficiency with API frameworks (e.g., FastAPI, Flask) and solid grasp of RESTful API design, authentication, and versioning.
• Experience building and operating backend services on cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure).
• 3+ years of experience with containerization and orchestration (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).
• 2+ years of experience with CI/CD tools and pipelines, and shipping code to production on a regular cadence.
• Hands‑on experience integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) into production applications – including prompt design, tool/function calling, evaluation, and cost/latency tuning.
• Strong experience with version control (Git), trunk‑based or feature‑branch workflows, and modern software development best practices.
• Hands‑on experience using agentic AI coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot agents) as part of the day‑to‑day development workflow, including effective prompting, reviewing AI‑generated code, and iterating on multi‑step agent tasks.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing and operating agentic or RAG‑based systems in production (retrieval, tool use, memory, evaluations).
• Experience with distributed systems, event‑driven architectures, or streaming platforms (e.g., Kafka).
• Familiarity with generative AI frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, or Pydantic AI.
• Familiarity with observability and evaluation tooling for LLM applications (e.g., OpenTelemetry, LangSmith, Arize, custom evaluation harnesses).
• Familiarity with infrastructure‑as‑code (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi).
• Excellent problem‑solving skills and ability to work in a collaborative, fast‑moving environment.

Candidates must currently reside in, or be willing to relocate to, one of our designated tech market locations (Louisville, Dallas, Boston, New York City, or Washington, DC) and be able to work onsite as needed to support team collaboration, innovation, and key business initiatives.

Weekly Hours: 40

Pay Range: $142,300 – $195,700 per year

This job is eligible for a bonus incentive plan. The incentive opportunity is based upon company and/or individual performance.

Description Of Benefits

Humana, Inc. and its affiliated subsidiaries (collectively, “Humana”) offer competitive benefits that support whole‑person well‑being. Associate benefits are designed to encourage personal wellness and smart healthcare decisions for you and your family while also recognizing that your life extends outside of work. Among our benefits, Humana provides medical, dental and vision benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan, time off (including paid time off, company and personal holidays, paid parental and caregiver leave), short‑term and long‑term disability, life insurance and many other opportunities.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is the policy of Humana not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, genetic information, disability or protected veteran status. It is also the policy of Humana to take affirmative action, in compliance with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and VEVRAA, to employ and to advance in employment individuals with disability or protected veteran status, and to base all employment decisions only on valid job requirements. This policy shall apply to all employment actions, including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, upgrading, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, recall, termination, rates of pay or other forms of compensation and selection for training, including apprenticeship, at all levels of employment.