Senior AI LLM Engineer

e-Merge IT Recruitment; Sandton; On-site; ZAR 1,080,000 - 1,320,000; Full time

Job summary

e-Merge IT Recruitment is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to design and implement real-time voice agents and scalable AI pipelines in a hands-on, production-focused environment in Sandton. You will work across LLMs, voice agents, automated testing, AI coding tools, and modern software practices.

You will bring 5+ years of engineering experience with 2+ years in applied LLM/speech AI, strong Python skills, and hands-on OpenAI/Azure OpenAI experience.

Qualifications

• 5+ years engineering; 2+ years applied LLM / speech AI in production.
• Strong Python (APIs, typing/validation, testing, packaging).
• OpenAI / Azure OpenAI (chat, structured outputs, batch patterns).
• Azure messaging, storage, and SQL-backed services.

Responsibilities

• Build and harden real-time voice agents: modular prompts, multi-assistant flows, tool-calling, webhooks, telephony/operational concerns.
• Improve automated QA pipelines: VAD, diarization, language gating, transcription, alignment/attribution, LLM scorecard scoring.
• Implement structured LLM pipelines (schemas, batching, failure handling, score recalculation).
• Own features in Azure Functions / Kubernetes workers: queue consumers, artifact pipelines, SQL integrations.
• Contribute to post-call intelligence features such as outcome scoring, summary generation, and structured data extraction.
• Expand and maintain evaluation suites (scenarios, LLM-as-judge, CI regression).

Skills

Python

LLM / speech AI

OpenAI / Azure OpenAI

Azure messaging

SQL-backed services

Ownership

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

PyTorch

Job description

Build what’s next in AI.

Join an innovative technolog
y environment focused on developing intelligent, AI-powered conversational solutions that are shaping the future of how people interact with technology.
This is a hands-on opportunity to work acrossLLMs, voice agents, automated testing, AI coding tools, and modern software development practices. You’ll take on complex technical challenges, contribute to solution design, and help turn ambitious AI concepts intoscalable, production-ready solutions.
For a Senior AI Engineer who enjoys solving challenging problems, working with emerging technology, and having a meaningful impact on technical direction, this is an opportunity to step into a role where your expertise can make a real difference.

Must-have skills and experience:

5+ years engineering; 2+ years applied LLM / speech AI in production Strong Python (APIs, typing/validation, testing, packaging) OpenAI / Azure OpenAI (chat, structured outputs, batch patterns) Azure messaging, storage, and SQL-backed services Proven ownership of ambiguous, multi-system features

Strong advantages:

Experience with Cursor, Claude, or similar AI coding assistants Voice agent stacks; latency, barge-in, end pointing awareness Speech ML in production (PyTorch, Whisper, diarization, ONNX, GPU Docker) vLLM / guided decoding; Kubernetes worker patterns Contact-centre QA or collections domain SQLAlchemy / Azure SQL; IaC awareness or strong infra collaboration

Responsibilities:

• Build and harden real-time voice agents: modular prompts, multi-assistant flows, tool-calling, webhooks, telephony/operational concerns
• Improve automated QA pipelines: VAD, diarization, language gating, transcription, alignment/attribution, LLM scorecard scoring
• Implement structured LLM pipelines (schemas, batching, failure handling, score recalculation)
• Own features in Azure Functions / Kubernetes workers: queue consumers, artifact pipelines, SQL integrations
• Contribute to post-call intelligence features such as outcome scoring, summary generation, and structured data extraction
• Expand and maintain evaluation suites (scenarios, LLM-as-judge, CI regression)
• Contribute to email/WhatsApp agent work with reuse of tools, outcomes, and observability

Reference number for this position is GZ61523 which is a permanent position based in Sandton offering a salary of R1.2m per annum , negotiable based on experience and ability.