Senior Software Engineer / Senior AI Engineer

Elsevier; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); On-site; USD 87,000 - 144,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive Pension Plan

Generous vacation entitlement and sabb

Maternity, paternity, adoption and fam

Personal Choice budget

Internal communities and networks

Employee discounts

Recruitment introduction reward

Employee Assistance Program (global)

Job summary

Elsevier is seeking a Senior AI Engineer in the United States to build and ship AI-powered features within a cross-functional Innovation Squad. You will deliver production-grade solutions inside enterprise systems, driving tool use, retrieval pipelines, and agent workflows with strong emphasis on observability and guardrails.

You will champion code quality and collaborate with host-function stakeholders to ensure solutions fit real workflows, enabling handover and long-term operability after the

Qualifications

• 3+ years in software engineering with hands-on experience building LLM-powered applications in production.
• Experience building RAG pipelines, tool-augmented agents, or agentic workflows.
• Familiar with prompt engineering, context management, evaluation, and observability.

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.

Skills

Python

Java

TypeScript/JavaScript

SQL

AI SDKs

Cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP)

CI/CD

Data stores

Tools

RAG pipelines

Tool-augmented agents

Job description

Are you excited about building intelligent systems powered by cutting-edge AI technologies? Do you enjoy designing models that turn complex data into impactful solutions?

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.

Benefits

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 outcomes for the benefit of society. Building on our publishing heritage, we combine quality information and vast data sets with analytics to support visionary science and research, health education, and interactive learning, as well as exceptional healthcare and clinical practice. At Elsevier, your work contributes to the world’s grand challenges and a more sustainable future. We harness innovative technologies to support science and healthcare to partner for a better world.

U.S. National Base Pay Range: $86,600 - $144,400. Geographic differentials may apply in some locations to better reflect local market rates. This job is eligible for an annual incentive bonus.