Remote AI Industry Mentor: Production-Ready Systems

Peopleworth; Cape Town; Remote; ZAR 600,000 - 1,000,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Collaborative culture

Career growth

Knowledge sharing

Remote learning

Job summary

Peopleworth is seeking a practising AI engineering professional to bring current industry experience into a career-focused learning environment. The Industry Mentor role supports learners developing production-ready AI engineering capability, with emphasis on LLM-based application engineering and real‑world practice.

You will work alongside academic tutors, connecting industry standards to how AI systems are built, operated, governed and hired in industry today.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated professional software engineering experience with hands-on involvement in building and operating LLM-based systems in production
• Current professional experience in a role such as AI Engineer, AI Application Engineer, Senior or Staff Software Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, Technical Lead, Principal Engineer, Architect, or AI Engineering Consultant
• Practical experience with LLM APIs, function calling, RAG, retrieval design, agent architectures, evaluation approaches, and cost or latency optimisation
• Strong production engineering fundamentals, including testing, CI/CD, containerisation, monitoring, and incident response
• Working knowledge of responsible AI in practical deployment environments, including governance, auditability, bias assessment, human oversight, and regulatory considerations
• Experience with AI‑assisted software development, including an understanding of common failure modes and approaches for verifying AI‑generated code
• Demonstrated ability to explain complex technical concepts clearly to people with different levels of technical experience
• Strong communication, facilitation, mentoring, and relationship‑building skills, with the judgement to guide learners through uncertainty rather than provide overly prescriptive answers
• Comfort working with online learning and communication technologies
• Previous teaching, mentoring, facilitation, or online learning experience is desirable
• A master's degree is desirable but not essential

Responsibilities

• Facilitate online community discussions that connect weekly technical learning and build activities to real‑world AI engineering practice
• Design and deliver three 60‑minute live industry sessions focused on the practical application of topics covered in the learning content
• Provide structured 30‑minute one‑to‑one sessions, through an agreed booking process, to support learners with industry context and career direction
• Share practical examples and lessons from building and operating LLM-based systems in production environments
• Support learners in understanding routes into AI engineering, employer expectations, portfolio credibility, and professional engineering practice
• Collaborate with relevant delivery colleagues to flag learner concerns, share learner feedback, and contribute observations on programme content and learner engagement
• Help learners connect technical topics including RAG, retrieval design, agent architectures, evaluation, monitoring, responsible AI, and production engineering to real workplace scenarios
• Adapt industry guidance to learners entering from different starting points, including career changers, experienced coders, and practising software engineers
• Maintain clear boundaries around academic assessment by avoiding grading, direct correction of assessed work, or step‑by‑step guidance on completing assessed tasks

Skills

LLM systems

AI Engineer experience

Software engineering

Industry mentoring

Communication & mentoring

Online teaching/learning

Explain complex topics

Career guidance

Remote collaboration

Teaching experience desirable

Master's degree (desirable)

CI/CD & testing

Containerisation & monitoring

Education

Master's degree

Tools

LLM APIs

Function calling

RAG

Retrieval design

Agent architectures

Evaluation approaches

Cost/latency optimisation

CI/CD tooling

Monitoring & incident response

Job description

Peopleworth is seeking a practising AI engineering professional to bring current industry experience into a career-focused learning environment. The Industry Mentor role supports learners developing production-ready AI engineering capability, with emphasis on LLM-based application engineering and real‑world practice.

You will work alongside academic tutors, connecting industry standards to how AI systems are built, operated, governed and hired in industry today.