Staff AI Engineer: Lead Production LLMs (On-site NYC)

Harnham; New York (NY); On-site; USD 230,000 - 270,000; Full time

Job summary

Harnham is seeking a Staff AI Engineer in New York, onsite, to lead the development of production-grade AI systems and LLM-based applications. You will own architecture, drive delivery, and collaborate with data scientists and stakeholders to deliver measurable value.

This deeply hands-on role emphasizes ownership, low bureaucracy, and the ability to ship impactful AI tooling in close partnership with senior stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering background, Python preferred.
• Experience building production AI systems (LLM apps).
• Knowledge of prompt design, embeddings, RAG, evaluation & monitoring.
• Experience deploying AI products for non-technical users.
• Able to set direction while remaining a hands-on builder.

Responsibilities

• Design and build LLM-based applications, including retrieval-augmented generation and agent-style workflows.
• Own end-to-end system architecture, performance, and scalability.
• Develop AI tools to support research, monitoring, knowledge discovery, and decision support.
• Establish evaluation and quality frameworks to ensure AI outputs meet reliability standards.
• Review code, set engineering standards, and mentor other engineers.
• Partner with non-technical users to translate complex workflows into AI products.

Skills

Python

Production AI

Prompt design

Embeddings & vectors

RAG architectures

Model evaluation & monitoring

Deploying AI products

Technical leadership

Non-technical stakeholder impact

Job description

Harnham is seeking a Staff AI Engineer in New York, onsite, to lead the development of production-grade AI systems and LLM-based applications. You will own architecture, drive delivery, and collaborate with data scientists and stakeholders to deliver measurable value.

This deeply hands-on role emphasizes ownership, low bureaucracy, and the ability to ship impactful AI tooling in close partnership with senior stakeholders.