Senior Software Engineer / Senior AI Engineer

Elsevier; Pennsylvania; On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension plan

Vacation and sabbatical

Family leave

Personal budget

Employee networks

Discounts

Referral rewards

EAP

Job summary

Elsevier in the United States is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to build and ship AI-powered features within an Innovation Squad. You will drive technical direction, develop retrieval pipelines, tool-augmented agents, and integrate AI capabilities into enterprise systems, delivering production-quality solutions in collaboration with host-function stakeholders.

You will maintain code quality, identify risks early, and support handover and capability-building so projects remain operable after the

Qualifications

• 3+ years in software engineering with hands-on LLM-powered production apps.
• Experience with building RAG pipelines, tool-augmented agents or agentic workflows.
• Familiar with prompt engineering, context management and observability.
• Proficient in integrating AI into enterprise systems via APIs and data pipelines.
• Comfortable delivering in short, time-boxed cycles with validated outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Build prototypes and ship AI solutions to production standards within defined technical approaches.
• Implement and test tool use, retrieval pipelines, and agent workflows.
• Contribute to evaluation, observability, and guardrails for agentic systems.
• Integrate AI capabilities into existing enterprise workflows and systems.
• Maintain high code quality and documentation for reuse across teams.
• Flag technical risks and blockers early and clearly.

Skills

LLM-powered apps

Python

TypeScript/JavaScript

SQL

CI/CD

TDD

Code reviews

APIs

Tools

AWS

Azure

GCP

Retrieval pipelines

Agent workflows

Job description

About the team:

Embedded Innovation Teams are cross-functional squads embedded within our segments to rapidly turn internal AI experimentation into validated, reusable solutions, building the capabilities we need to deliver customer value and growth. We work problem-first rather than tool-first, directly inside segment and function teams, improving the internal workflows that help our people deliver better outcomes for customers, faster.

About the role:

As a Senior AI Engineer, you will build and ship AI-powered features as part of a cross-functional Innovation Squad, working inside a business function. You will deliver the set technical direction to production standard, working autonomously within a defined problem, building and testing tool use, retrieval pipelines, and agent workflows, integrating AI capabilities into enterprise systems, and contributing to evaluation, observability, and guardrails.

You will hold a high bar on code quality, flag risks and blockers early, and work alongside host-function stakeholders to make sure what you build fits real workflows, not assumed ones. You'll also support handover and capability-building so the solution is owned and operable after the squad moves on.

Key Responsibilities:

• Building prototypes and proofs of concept and ship agentic AI solutions to production standards within a defined technical approach.
• Implementing and testing tool use, retrieval pipelines, and agent workflows.
• Contributing to evaluation, observability, and guardrails for agentic systems.
• Integrating AI capabilities into existing enterprise workflows and systems.
• Maintaining high code quality and documentation so patterns can be reused.
• Flagging technical risks and blockers early.
• Interface with technical peers to finalize requirements and complete moderately complex bug fixes.
• Building solutions for reuse, contributing to patterns, reference implementations and starter kits so work done in one function can be picked up by another.
• Implementing solutions to capture outcome data against baselines.
• Work alongside host-function stakeholders to ensure the build fits real workflows, not assumed ones.
• Supporting handover and capability-building in the host function so the solution is owned and operable after the squad moves on.

Requirements:

• Engineering experience: 3+ years in software engineering, with hands-on experience building LLM-powered applications in production (RAG, tool-augmented agents, or agentic workflows).
• Ways of working: Comfortable working autonomously within a defined problem and pushing back when something doesn't make sense, and delivering in short, time‑boxed cycles where validated outcomes matter more than perfect solutions.
• Agentic AI / LLMs: Building RAG pipelines, tool‑augmented agents, and agentic workflows; familiar with prompt engineering, context management, evaluation, and observability.
• Agent fundamentals: Understands how agents use memory, tools, and retrieval to complete multi‑step tasks.
• Enterprise integration: Integrating AI into existing systems via APIs and data pipelines.
• Cloud: AWS, Azure or GCP.
• Delivery: CI/CD, modern SDLC, TDD and code review.
• Data: Working with relational, columnar and vector stores, grounded in sound data‑modelling principles.
• Languages: Python, Java, TypeScript/JavaScript, SQL and relevant AI SDKs.
• Communication: Clear written and verbal communication with technical peers and stakeholders.
• Measurement: Instrumenting solutions to capture usage, productivity and quality metrics against established baselines.

Why Join Us?

Join our team and contribute to a culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence. If you are ready to advance your career and make a significant impact, we encourage you to apply.

Work in a way that works for you

We promote a healthy work/life balance across the organization. We offer an appealing working prospect for our people. With numerous wellbeing initiatives, shared parental leave, study assistance and sabbaticals, we will help you meet your immediate responsibilities and your long‑term goals.

Working flexible hours - flexing the times when you work in the day to help you fit everything in and work when you are the most productive.

Working for you

We know that your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. These are some of the benefits we are delighted to offer:

• Comprehensive Pension Plan
• Generous vacation entitlement and option for sabbatical leave
• Maternity, Paternity, Adoption and Family Care leave
• Personal Choice budget
• Internal communities and networks
• Various employee discounts
• Recruitment introduction reward
• Employee Assistance Program (global)

About the business-

A global leader in information and analytics, we help researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health