Lead AI Engineer

Hidden Jobs; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote engagement

23 days paid time off

Generous maternity and paternity leave

Bonus structure

Job summary

Sierra Studio in the United States is seeking a Lead AI Engineer to own an internal technology platform used by a remote retention-marketing operation. You will combine architecture, full-stack development, data engineering, and AI systems to evolve prototypes into maintainable software and reliable workflows.

You will set technical direction, design data pipelines, and build AI agents for diagnostics, reporting, QA, and internal operations while working asynchronously in a remote environment

Qualifications

• Five+ years of professional software development with shipped products.
• Strong full-stack skills using TypeScript and/or Python, modern frontend and backend development, SQL, and relational databases.
• Experience provisioning and operating cloud infrastructure, along with practical CI/CD experience.
• Hands-on experience building LLM-based systems, including agents, tool use, retrieval, evaluations, prompt design, and reusable AI skills.
• Strong understanding of third-party API ingestion, data modeling, synchronization, and analytical querying.
• Experience owning data infrastructure end to end and working independently as the only or lead engineer.
• Clear written and verbal English communication in a remote, asynchronous environment, with a proactive ownership mindset.

Responsibilities

• Review the existing systems and decide what should be retained, rebuilt, documented, or consolidated.
• Establish a maintainable codebase with clear engineering standards, architecture guidelines, and operational ownership.
• Design data pipelines that ingest information from external marketing platforms, model it in a relational database, keep it synchronized, and support flexible analysis.
• Build and maintain AI agents and skills for account diagnostics, reporting, QA, go-to-market, and internal workflows.
• Improve the consistency and reliability of internal AI tooling so teams can use it without depending on a single expert.
• Evolve early internal products into dependable, scalable tools and define how product changes move from experimentation into maintained software.
• Set technical direction, delivery standards, and the foundation for a future engineering function.

Skills

English communication

Tools

TypeScript

Python

SQL

Relational databases

Cloud infrastructure

CI/CD

LLM-based systems

API ingestion

Job description

Role overview

The Lead AI Engineer will become the first dedicated engineering owner for an internal technology platform used by a remote retention-marketing operation. The role combines architecture, full-stack development, data engineering, AI systems, and product judgment: auditing early tools, turning prototypes into maintainable software, and building reliable agentic workflows that support diagnostics, reporting, quality assurance, go-to-market work, and internal operations.

Responsibilities

• Review the existing systems and decide what should be retained, rebuilt, documented, or consolidated.
• Establish a maintainable codebase with clear engineering standards, architecture guidelines, and operational ownership.
• Design data pipelines that ingest information from external marketing platforms, model it in a relational database, keep it synchronized, and support flexible analysis.
• Build and maintain AI agents and skills for account diagnostics, reporting, QA, go-to-market, and internal workflows.
• Improve the consistency and reliability of internal AI tooling so teams can use it without depending on a single expert.
• Evolve early internal products into dependable, scalable tools and define how product changes move from experimentation into maintained software.
• Set technical direction, delivery standards, and the foundation for a future engineering function.

Requirements

• Five or more years of professional software development experience with shipped products used by real customers or teams.
• Strong full-stack skills using TypeScript and/or Python, modern frontend and backend development, SQL, and relational databases.
• Experience provisioning and operating cloud infrastructure, along with practical CI/CD experience.
• Hands-on experience building LLM-based systems, including agents, tool use, retrieval, evaluations, prompt design, and reusable AI skills.
• Strong understanding of third-party API ingestion, data modeling, synchronization, and analytical querying.
• Experience owning data infrastructure end to end and working independently as the only or lead engineer.
• Clear written and verbal English communication in a remote, asynchronous environment, with a proactive ownership mindset.

Nice to have

• Experience with email or SMS marketing platforms or the direct-to-consumer commerce ecosystem.
• Background in martech, retention products, or fast-moving product organizations.
• Experience turning agency workflows or internal tools into software products.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted coding tools and strong opinions about what should be built, not only how.

Benefits and work setup

• Fully remote contractor engagement with flexible hours and overlap with U.S. working time.
• 23 days of paid time off.
• Generous maternity and paternity leave.
• Bonus structure.
• Contractor arrangement does not include healthcare coverage.