Applied AI Engineer

Software Guidance & Assistance, Inc. (SGA, Inc.); New York (NY); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Software Guidance & Assistance, Inc. (SGA, Inc.) is seeking an Applied AI Engineer for a CONTRACT assignment with a premier Financial Services client in New York, NY. This role centers on building an enterprise GenAI workflow platform and production-grade AI systems.

The candidate will design, implement, and operate GenAI workflows, embeddings, and governance with hands-on duties and a potential path to owning shared GenAI standards across Lending.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of dedicated GenAI production experience in an enterprise setting.
• Experience designing and operating GenAI orchestration frameworks beyond vendor demos (e.g., LangChain).
• 5+ years of full-stack engineering with focus on AI/ML platforms and workflows (Python or Java).
• Proven track record building/operating production-grade GenAI/LLM platforms with RAG, tools, agentic workflows, and structured outputs.

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve reusable GenAI workflows across Lending business lines.
• Develop enterprise-grade AI-based document ingestion and data extraction with traceability, confidence scoring, and human-in-the-loop review.
• Build AI-powered assistants embedded in Lending systems using agentic workflows.
• Deliver automated content and deck generation workflows for reporting and approvals.
• Provide expert advice on GenAI architecture including model selection and evaluation strategy.
• Establish LLM Ops practices: extraction accuracy, prompts management, monitoring and reliability.
• Design and implement controls for entitlements, PII handling within open-source models in regulated environment.
• Act as hands-on technical expert with a path to platform owner for shared GenAI standards across Lending.

Skills

GenAI in production

GenAI orchestration

Front-to-back engineering

Python/Java

LLM Ops

Data ingestion pipelines

Vector search

Retriever augmented generation

Job description

Software Guidance & Assistance, Inc., (SGA), is searching for an Applied AI Engineer for a CONTRACT assignment with one of our premier Financial Services clients in New York, NY.

The team is building an enterprise grade GenAI workflow platform to enable document data extraction, embedded productivity assistants, and automated business workflows across business lines.

This is not a research or demo role. We are seeking senior hands-on full stack engineers who have designed, built, and operated GenAI systems in production, and understand failure modes, evaluation, and governance as first class AI-powered systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve reusable GenAI workflows used across Lending business lines.
• Develop an enterprise grade AI-based document ingestion and data extraction capability, including traceability, confidence scoring, and human-in-the-loop review.
• Build AI-powered assistants embedded in Lending systems using agentic workflows.
• Deliver automated content and deck generation workflows for reporting and approvals.
• Provide expert advice on GenAI architecture including model selection, orchestration patterns, and evaluation strategy.
• Establish LLM Ops practices: extraction accuracy, assistant reliability, prompts management, and audit monitoring.
• Design and implement controls for entitlements, PII handling within open-source models in a regulated environment.
• In the role you are expected to act as a hands-on technical expert, and it has a clear path to becoming a platform owner responsible for shared GenAI standards across Lending.

Required Skills

• 2+, dedicated experience in practical application of GenAI solutions in an enterprise business environment.
• Designing and operating GenAI orchestration frameworks in production beyond vendor examples (e.g., LangChain systems)
• 5+ years of strong front-to-back engineering experience, focusing on AI ML platforms and workflows (Python or Java).
• Proven experience building and operating production grade GenAI / LLM platforms, applying patterns such as RAG, tool/function calling, agentic workflows, and validated structured outputs.
• Strong LLM Ops expertise, including evaluation harnesses, prompt and version management, regression testing, observability, and reliability measurement in production systems.
• Hands on experience building AI-first data ingestion pipelines with measurable quality, accuracy, and reliability.
• Advanced retrieval experience advanced vector search, including multi vector and late interaction approaches (e.g., ColBERT, chunking), multi stage retrieval pipelines, metadata filtering, reranking.
• Solid understanding of evaluation metrics and how they shape practical RAG system design (e.g., recall vs precision, latency vs quality, MRR, NDCG).
• Experience operating GenAI systems through real production failures (model regressions, retrieval degradation, prompt drift, data quality issues) and designing mitigation strategies.

Preferred Skills

• Fixed Income or Institutional Lending domain experience.
• Experience working in regulated environments with strong audit and control requirements.
• Familiarity with enterprise security, data governance, and entitlement models.
• Experience designing reusable internal platforms or shared developer tooling.
• Frontend experience is beneficial (Angular or React)

SGA is a technology and resource solutions provider driven to stand out. We are a women-owned business. Our mission: to solve big IT problems with a more personal, boutique approach. Each year, we match consultants like you to more than 1,000 engagements. When we say let's work better together, we mean it. You'll join a diverse team built on these core values: customer service, employee development, and quality and integrity in everything we do. Be yourself, love what you do and find your passion at work. Please find us at https://sgainc.com/.

SGA is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of Race, Color, Sex, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Religion, National Origin, Disability, Veteran Status, Age, Marital Status, Pregnancy, Genetic Information, or Other Legally Protected Status. We are committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, and our services, programs, and activities. Please visit our company EEO page to request an accommodation or assistance regarding our policy.