Principal AI Engineer - Natural Language Processing

Placements24; Pretoria; Hybrid; ZAR 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Professional development opportunities

Conference attendance & learning

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Principal AI Engineer (NLP) to lead the design, development, and deployment of advanced NLP models in Pretoria. The role focuses on text understanding, generation, and analysis, driving state-of-the-art capabilities.

The ideal candidate has 7+ years in AI/ML with a strong NLP background, expertise in major DL frameworks, and hands-on experience with production NLP systems. Hybrid work with a modern Pretoria facility is offered.

Qualifications

• Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Linguistics, or a related field.
• 7+ years of professional AI/ML experience with a focus on NLP.
• Proven track record deploying NLP models in production.
• Expertise with TensorFlow, PyTorch or Keras.
• Strong Python programming and NLP library experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and implementation of advanced NLP models and algorithms (transformers, LSTMs, BERT, GPT).
• Develop and optimize NLP pipelines for sentiment, classification, entity recognition, summarization, and translation.
• Architect scalable, production-grade NLP systems for understanding and generation.
• Collaborate with product, software engineers, and stakeholders to define requirements and deliver NLP solutions.
• Mentor junior AI engineers and contribute to the technical vision of the AI team.
• Conduct research on state-of-the-art NLP techniques and evaluate applicability to business needs.
• Manage lifecycle of NLP models: training, fine-tuning, deployment, monitoring.
• Ensure ethical and responsible AI development and deployment.
• Write high-quality code, documentation, and proposals.

Skills

Leadership/mentoring

Problem-solving

Communication

Python

NLP expertise

Education

Master's or PhD in CS/AI/Computational Linguistics

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Keras

Hugging Face Transformers

NLTK

spaCy

Job description

About the Role

Our client is a rapidly expanding technology company specializing in advanced AI solutions for enterprise applications. We are seeking a highly skilled Principal AI Engineer with deep expertise in Natural Language Processing (NLP) to join our innovative team in Pretoria. This senior role will involve designing, developing, and deploying state-of-the-art NLP models and systems that power our core products. You will be responsible for tackling challenging problems related to text understanding, generation, and analysis, driving significant advancements in our AI capabilities. The ideal candidate possesses a strong background in machine learning, deep learning, and practical experience in building production-ready NLP systems. Join us in Pretoria, Gauteng, and play a key role in shaping the future of intelligent language understanding.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design and implementation of advanced NLP models and algorithms (e.g., transformers, LSTMs, BERT, GPT).
• Develop and optimize NLP pipelines for tasks such as sentiment analysis, text classification, entity recognition, summarization, and machine translation.
• Architect and build scalable, production-grade AI systems for natural language understanding and generation.
• Collaborate with product managers, software engineers, and other stakeholders to define requirements and deliver impactful NLP solutions.
• Mentor junior AI engineers and contribute to the overall technical vision of the AI team.
• Conduct research on state-of-the-art NLP techniques and evaluate their applicability to our business needs.
• Manage the lifecycle of NLP models, including training, fine-tuning, deployment, and monitoring.
• Ensure the ethical and responsible development and deployment of AI technologies.
• Write high-quality code, documentation, and technical proposals.

Requirements

• Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Linguistics, or a related field.
• 7+ years of professional experience in AI/ML engineering, with a strong focus on NLP.
• Proven track record of successfully developing and deploying NLP models in production environments.
• Expertise in deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or Keras.
• Strong programming skills in Python and experience with NLP libraries (e.g., Hugging Face Transformers, NLTK, spaCy).
• Deep understanding of NLP concepts, including language modeling, word embeddings, sequence-to-sequence models, and attention mechanisms.
• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS SageMaker, Google AI Platform, Azure ML) is highly desirable.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and communication skills.
• Ability to lead technical initiatives and mentor junior team members.
• Experience with large language models (LLMs) and prompt engineering is a significant plus.

Benefits

Our client offers a highly competitive compensation package, including an attractive salary, performance bonuses, and a comprehensive benefits plan. The hybrid work model provides a balance between in-office collaboration in our modern Pretoria facility and remote flexibility. We are committed to employee growth, offering extensive professional development opportunities, including training, conference attendance, and access to cutting-edge research. You will work on challenging and impactful projects at the forefront of AI innovation. Enjoy a dynamic work culture that values creativity and continuous learning. Join our team in Pretoria, Gauteng, and contribute to building the next generation of intelligent language technologies.