Lead AI Engineer

KellyMitchell Group; St. Louis (MO); Hybrid; USD 87,000 - 124,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental, & Vision Insurance

Employee-Owned Profit Sharing (ESOP)

401K offered

Job summary

KellyMitchell Group is seeking a Lead AI Engineer in St. Louis to drive enterprise AI capabilities. This hybrid role blends technical leadership with hands-on work to deliver production-grade AI solutions, including agentic AI, RAG, and intelligent automation that accelerate digital transformation.

The position requires 5+ years of software engineering, expertise in Python, AWS, and AI platform engineering, and the ability to translate business requirements into scalable AI architectures.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in a technical field.
• 5+ years of software engineering experience in production environments.
• Proven track record delivering enterprise-grade software solutions.
• Experience building production-grade agentic AI systems.
• Strong Python development with AI platform engineering expertise.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, deploy, and support enterprise-scale AI solutions in production environments.
• Develop agentic workflows, orchestration pipelines, tool integrations, and autonomous AI capabilities.
• Build and evolve RAG and agent-based architectures that deliver measurable business value.
• Create and maintain evaluation frameworks to improve AI quality, groundedness, reliability, and performance.

Skills

Python

AI platform engineering

Production AI systems

AWS in production

Databricks

LangGraph/LangChain

RESTful APIs

CI/CD

Agile development

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Job Summary

Our client is seeking a Lead AI Engineer to drive the development and evolution of enterprise AI capabilities. This highly visible role blends technical leadership and hands‑on expertise to deliver scalable, production‑grade AI solutions, including agentic AI, RAG, and intelligent automation technologies that create business value and accelerate digital transformation.

Key Details

Work Arrangement: Hybrid, three days per week onsite, Monday or Friday mandatory. Strong potential for conversion based on performance and business need.

Core Responsibilities

• Design, build, deploy, and support enterprise-scale AI solutions in production environments
• Develop agentic workflows, orchestration pipelines, tool integrations, and autonomous AI capabilities
• Build and evolve RAG and agent-based architectures that deliver measurable business value
• Create and maintain evaluation frameworks to improve AI quality, groundedness, reliability, and performance
• Implement AI observability, tracing, monitoring, and operational best practices
• Develop automated testing, validation, and regression processes for AI systems
• Integrate AI solutions with enterprise applications, APIs, and data platforms
• Design reusable frameworks, patterns, and components to increase scalability and engineering efficiency
• Establish and promote engineering best practices through code reviews and technical mentorship
• Research, evaluate, and adopt emerging AI technologies where appropriate
• Partner with business stakeholders, architects, and engineers to translate business requirements into innovative AI solutions
• Provide technical leadership and guidance on AI platform strategy and architecture decisions

Required Skills/Experience (Must-Haves)

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of software engineering experience
• Proven track record delivering enterprise‑grade software solutions in production environments
• Experience building and delivering production‑grade agentic AI systems
• Strong Python development experience combined with AI platform engineering expertise
• Experience designing, deploying, operating, monitoring, and evaluating production AI systems
• Hands‑on experience implementing agentic AI workflows and autonomous systems
• Experience designing and implementing Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions
• Experience with Databricks
• Experience with LangGraph or similar agent orchestration frameworks
• Experience building AI workflows utilizing tools, APIs, and external systems
• Experience implementing AI evaluation frameworks and quality measurement methodologies
• Experience with AI observability, tracing, and monitoring solutions
• Strong understanding of agent architecture patterns, prompt engineering, and LLM evaluation techniques
• Experience with AWS in production environments
• Experience designing and consuming RESTful APIs
• Experience utilizing Git, CI/CD pipelines, and modern software engineering practices
• Knowledge of secure coding principles and responsible AI practices
• Experience working within Agile development environments

Preferred Skills/Experience (Nice-to-Haves)

• Experience with AgentBricks
• Experience with Microsoft Copilot extensibility and agent development
• Experience with LangChain and related AI frameworks
• Experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations
• Experience with vector databases and semantic search technologies
• Experience with AWS Bedrock
• Experience with OpenTelemetry, LangSmith, Grafana, MLflow, DeepEval, or similar tooling
• Experience deploying and managing multi-agent systems
• Experience with Terraform AWS, Databricks, Microsoft, or AI-related certifications
• Demonstrated experience mentoring teammates and contributing to collaborative engineering environments

Key Competencies & Behaviors

• Business Outcome Focused
• Scalable Innovation
• Balance Ownership & Accountability
• Holistic Systems Thinking
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Team-Oriented Mentor Work Environment

Employment Type

Contract-to-Hire

Location

St. Louis, MO

Work Arrangement

Hybrid Onsite

Requirement

Three days per week in office

Scheduling Requirement

One of the onsite days must be either Monday or Friday

Interview Process

Initial virtual interview followed by an onsite interview

Conversion Goal

The organization intends to convert the right candidate based on performance, culture fit, and business needs

Compensation & Benefits

Pay Range: The approximate pay range for this position is between $63.00 and $90.00. Please note that the pay range provided is a good faith estimate. Final compensation may vary based on factors including but not limited to background, knowledge, skills, and location. We comply with local wage minimums.

• Medical, Dental, & Vision Insurance Plans
• Employee-Owned Profit Sharing (ESOP)
• 401K offered

About KellyMitchell

At KellyMitchell, our culture is world class. We're movers and shakers! We don't mind a bit of friendly competition, and we reward hard work with unlimited potential for growth. This is an exciting opportunity to join a company known for innovative solutions and unsurpassed customer service. We're passionate about helping companies solve their biggest IT staffing & project solutions challenges. As an employee-owned, women-led organization serving Fortune 500 companies nationwide, we deliver expert service at a moment's notice.

Marketing Disclosure

By applying for this job, you agree to receive calls, AI-generated calls, text messages, or emails from KellyMitchell and its affiliates, and contracted partners. Frequency varies for text messages. Message and data rates may apply. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. You can reply STOP to cancel and HELP for help. You can access our privacy policy at https://www.careers.kellymitchell.com/privacy-policy.. [142887]