Applied AI Engineer

Protingent; Washington; Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Protingent Staffing is seeking an Applied AI Engineer for a fully remote, direct‑hire role with our client. You will turn model capabilities into real product behavior, owning problems end‑to‑end from shaping model behavior, to building the systems around it, to ensuring it performs reliably in production.

This role sits at the intersection of machine learning, systems, and product, focusing on making AI actually work for users, not just in demos, but in real‑world usage.

Qualifications

• Strong foundation in machine learning and modern neural network architectures.
• Hands-on experience with training, fine-tuning, or deploying ML models.
• Ability to write clean, production-quality code.
• Comfort working across abstraction layers (model, infra, product).
• Strong problem-solving skills in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
• Bias toward shipping, iteration, and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship AI features end-to-end (model, system, user experience).
• Design and iterate on prompts, tools, memory, and agent workflows.
• Turn raw model outputs into structured, reliable, and predictable behaviors.
• Debug issues across the full stack (model, orchestration, infra, UX).
• Optimize for latency, cost, and production reliability.
• Develop lightweight evaluation frameworks to measure real-world performance.
• Work closely with product and engineering to translate ambiguous problems into working systems.
• Ensure ML models in production meet expected accuracy, latency, and reliability targets.
• Identify and debug production issues quickly, address root causes, and maintain robust, reproducible pipelines, training loops, and inference systems.
• Collaborate with engineers, product, and research teams to deliver reliable ML-powered features, iterating on models and systems based on real‑world signals and measurable improvements

Skills

Python

PyTorch / JAX

LLMs

Inference / serving

Vector DB

Job description

Applied AI Engineer

Protingent Staffing is seeking an applied AI engineer for a fully remote direct‑hire role with our client.

Job Description

As an Applied AI Engineer, you will turn model capabilities into real product behavior. You will own problems end‑to‑end, from shaping model behavior, to building the systems around it, to ensuring it performs reliably in production. This role sits at the intersection of machine learning, systems, and product, focusing on making AI actually work for users, not just in demos, but in real‑world usage.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship AI features end‑to‑end (model, system, user experience)
• Design and iterate on prompts, tools, memory, and agent workflows
• Turn raw model outputs into structured, reliable, and predictable behaviors
• Debug issues across the full stack (model, orchestration, infra, UX)
• Optimize for latency, cost, and production reliability
• Develop lightweight evaluation frameworks to measure real‑world performance
• Work closely with product and engineering to translate ambiguous problems into working systems
• Ensure ML models in production meet expected accuracy, latency, and reliability targets
• Identify and debug production issues quickly, address root causes, and maintain robust, reproducible pipelines, training loops, and inference systems
• Collaborate with engineers, product, and research teams to deliver reliable ML-powered features, iterating on models and systems based on real‑world signals and measurable improvements

Qualifications

• Strong foundation in machine learning and modern neural network architectures
• Hands‑on experience with training, fine‑tuning, or deploying ML models
• Ability to write clean, production‑quality code
• Comfort working across abstraction layers (model, infra, product)
• Strong problem‑solving skills in ambiguous, fast‑moving environments
• Bias toward shipping, iteration, and continuous improvement

Must Have

• Python
• PyTorch / JAX
• LLMs (OpenAI‑style APIs, LLaMA, Qwen, etc.)
• Inference / serving (e.g. vLLM)
• Vector DB

Job Details

• Job Type: Direct Hire
• Pay Range: Market Rate
• Location: Fully Remote