Senior AI/ML Engineer — Remote, Production LLM Systems

Velir; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Velir, a remote-first agency with a top-tier client portfolio, seeks a Senior AI/ML Engineer to design, build, and deploy production-grade AI/ML systems. You’ll partner with leadership and cross-functional teams to translate business needs into scalable ML and LLM-based solutions.

This role emphasizes technical leadership over people management, mentorship across teams, and responsible AI practices. You will own end-to-end ML lifecycles, build LLM pipelines, and collaborate with data, analytics,

Qualifications

• 5–7 years of experience in ML engineering, AI engineering, or related fields, with production deployment experience.
• Strong programming skills in Python and SQL; experience with PyTorch and HuggingFace.
• Experience building LLM applications, including RAG, embeddings, and vector search.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS or Azure; e.g., SageMaker, Bedrock, Azure ML).
• Strong understanding of ML fundamentals: data design, training, evaluation, and experimentation.
• Familiarity with LLM alignment techniques (e.g., SFT, DPO, RL).
• Experience with MLOps practices: CI/CD, monitoring, retraining, and experiment tracking.
• Proficiency working with complex, multi-source datasets and defining evaluation strategies.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals (testing, modularity, code review).
• Experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction.
• Strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Languages: Python, SQL.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and implementation of scalable ML systems, including supervised, unsupervised, and LLM-based solutions.
• Translate research and prototypes into production-ready systems.
• Partner with stakeholders to identify high-impact AI/ML opportunities and define optimal technical approaches.
• Provide technical mentorship and contribute to team upskilling.
• Build and operate LLM pipelines, including prompt design, fine-tuning, and evaluation.
• Develop RAG-based systems using embeddings, vector stores, and retrieval strategies.
• Design evaluation frameworks, feedback loops, and datasets to continuously improve model performance.
• Create reusable tooling to accelerate experimentation, deployment, and monitoring.
• Own end-to-end ML lifecycle: data pipelines, training, deployment, monitoring, and iteration.
• Establish best practices for reproducibility, observability, CI/CD, and model versioning.
• Partner with platform/DevOps teams to ensure reliability and scalability.
• Promote responsible AI practices, including governance, fairness, and transparency.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives across data engineering, analytics, and AI/ML.
• Translate complex ML concepts into clear recommendations for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Collaborate with clients and internal teams to plan and deliver AI/ML solutions.
• Contribute documentation, frameworks, and shared best practices.
• Scope and lead complex AI/ML initiatives aligned to business outcomes.
• Align stakeholders and drive execution across teams.
• Establish clear success metrics and ensure delivery of high-impact solutions.

Skills

Python

SQL

LLM development

RAG implementations

Embeddings

Vector search

MLOps

CI/CD

Model evaluation

Cloud platforms

Tools

PyTorch

HuggingFace

SageMaker

Bedrock

Azure ML

Job description

Velir, a remote-first agency with a top-tier client portfolio, seeks a Senior AI/ML Engineer to design, build, and deploy production-grade AI/ML systems. You’ll partner with leadership and cross-functional teams to translate business needs into scalable ML and LLM-based solutions.

This role emphasizes technical leadership over people management, mentorship across teams, and responsible AI practices. You will own end-to-end ML lifecycles, build LLM pipelines, and collaborate with data, analytics,