Senior AI LLM Engineer - Sandton - R1.2m PA

E-Merge; Sandton; On-site; ZAR 1,000,000 - 1,400,000; Full time

Job summary

E-Merge in Sandton is seeking an experienced AI engineer to build real-time voice agents and scalable AI solutions. You will work across LLMs, voice stacks, automated testing, and modern software practices to turn ambitious AI concepts into production-ready systems.

This permanent role offers a competitive salary of about R1.2 million per year, negotiable by experience, and the opportunity to own cross-system features end-to-end in a cutting-edge AI environment, with strong focus on delivery and

Qualifications

• 5+ years engineering experience with 2+ years in production LLM / speech AI.
• Strong Python (APIs, typing, testing, packaging).
• Experience with OpenAI / Azure OpenAI in production.
• Azure storage, messaging, and SQL-backed services.
• Proven ownership of ambiguous, multi-system features.

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

Skills

Python

LLM / speech AI

OpenAI / Azure OpenAI

Azure SQL

Multi-system ownership

Production systems

Tools

Azure Functions

Kubernetes

SQLAlchemy

Job description

Build what's next in AI.

Join an innovative technology 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 across LLMs, 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 into scalable, production-ready solutions.

Must-Have Skills & 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.