Senior Python AI Engineer

Sabenza IT & Recruitment; Pretoria; On-site; ZAR 750,000 - 1,100,000; Full time

Job summary

Sabenza IT & Recruitment in Pretoria is seeking an Expert AI Engineer / Full Stack Developer to move Generative AI from experiments into production-ready solutions. You’ll work with LLMs, AI agents, RAG, prompt/context engineering and enterprise data tooling to build reusable AI platforms that empower development teams.

You’ll own end-to-end AI engineering across the software lifecycle, integrating tools, ensuring guardrails, observability, security and reliable production readiness using

Qualifications

• Expert knowledge of LLMs and Generative AI application engineering.
• Hands-on experience building production-grade LLM applications and AI agents.
• Strong understanding of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
• Prompt and context engineering.
• Agent/tool integration and orchestration.
• Structured outputs and tool calling.
• Model and application evaluation.
• AI guardrails and human approval mechanisms.
• AI observability, reliability and production monitoring.
• Responsible and secure AI engineering.

Skills

LLMs & Generative AI

AI agents

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

Prompt engineering

Tool integration & orchestration

AI governance & guardrails

AI observability & production tooling

Python/Java

APIs & microservices

Cloud-native (AWS)

Docker/Kubernetes

Terraform

Snowflake & Data Eng

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

Snowflake

Job description

Pretoria, South Africa | Posted on 02/11/2026

Ready to build the future of AI? Let's talk!

Are you passionate about Artificial Intelligence, obsessed with innovative technology and excited by the idea of turning complex challenges into smart, scalable solutions?

We're looking for anExpert AI Engineer / Full Stack Developerwho knows how to take AI beyond experimentation and turn innovative ideas into real-world, production-ready solutions.

This isn't your typical development role! You'll be working at the forefront of Generative AI, LLMs, intelligent agents and enterprise data engineering, helping build reusable AI platforms and tools that empower development teams to work smarter, faster and more efficiently.

If Python is your playground, AI is your passion and building solutions that make a real impact is what gets you excited, this opportunity is for you!

Requirements

• Expert knowledge of LLMs and Generative AI application engineering.
  
• Hands-on experience building production-grade LLM applications and AI agents.
  
• Strong understanding of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
  
• Prompt and context engineering.
  
• Agent/tool integration and orchestration.
  
• Structured outputs and tool calling.
  
• Model and application evaluation.
  
• AI guardrails and human approval mechanisms.
  
• AI observability, reliability and production monitoring.
  
• Responsible and secure AI engineering.
  
• The source role already identifies agents, RAG, prompt/context engineering, tool integration, evaluation, guardrails and human approval gates as core AI engineering capabilities.
  
• Strong practical capability using AI throughout the software engineering lifecycle.
  
• AI-assisted implementation and refactoring.
  
• AI-assisted test generation and quality engineering.
  
• AI-supported code review and documentation.
  
• Ability to build reusable AI-enabled developer tooling and workflows.
  
• Strong understanding that AI-generated outputs still require accountable engineering review.
  
• The reference specification explicitly expects responsible AI-assisted development across specification, coding, review, testing, documentation and operations while retaining accountability for correctness and security.
  
• Software & Platform Engineering.
  
• Strong API and microservice engineering.
  
• REST-based service integration.
  
• Event-driven and asynchronous architecture.
  
• Containers and Kubernetes.
  
• CI/CD and automated testing.
  
• Infrastructure as Code.
  
• Production observability and operational readiness.
  
• Strong architecture and systems-thinking capability.
  
• Python/Java, APIs, microservices, AWS/cloud-native engineering, Docker/Kubernetes/Terraform, automated testing, CI/CD and production readiness are all represented in the reference Expert specification.
  
• Snowflake & Data Engineering.
  
• Strong Snowflake engineering and implementation capability.
  
• Design and implementation of data models suitable for AI and application consumption.
  
• Advanced SQL.
  
• Data ingestion and transformation.
  
• Metadata, lineage and data quality.
  
• Integration between Snowflake, AI services, APIs and enterprise applications.
  
• Performance and cost-conscious data engineering.