HOME AI & Research Lead AI Engineer | Onsite - Delaware
  • Photon
  • United States,
  • Full-Time
  • 40 days ago
  • $56,000–$196,000
Photon VERIFIED EMPLOYER

Lead AI Engineer | Onsite - Delaware.

AI & Research Full-Time

Lead AI Engineer | Onsite - Delaware: our view in 3 lines...

  • The Role:This role leads engineering work on LLM-powered systems, RAG, AI agents, and evaluation frameworks in a financial-services setting.
  • The Person:The person will deliver LLM integrations, RAG and agent systems, guardrails, evaluation frameworks, and AI observability while running day-to-day delivery of an offshore development team.
  • Requirements:The ideal candidate has 6+ years in software engineering, 2+ years as a tech lead, strong Python skills, LLM API integrations, prompt engineering, RAG systems, AI agents, guardrails design, evaluation frameworks, CI/CD, and AWS Bedrock or comparable managed LLM platforms.

About the role

Key Responsibilities 

  • Own delivery of LLM API integration and SDK patterns used across applications. 
  • Set organizational guidance on which LLM to use for what use case and drive delivery of multi-LLM scenarios. 
  • Define standards for advanced prompt engineering and context window management. 
  • Own delivery of RAG systems, including vector database selection/topology and knowledgebase design. 
  • Drive delivery of AI agent and multi-agent systems and tool-use/MCP integration patterns. 
  • Own guardrails delivery (safety, compliance, PII handling in prompts/outputs) — critical in a financial-services context. 
  • Define evaluation frameworks and real-time eval strategy; set standards for AI testing in CI/CD. 
  • Own latency profiling, AI observability, and cost tracking/management for LLM-backed systems. 
  • Run day-to-day delivery of the offshore development team: sprint commitments, code/design review, real-time unblocking, and hands-on work on critical-path AI features. 
  • Report delivery status, risks, and blockers to engineering leadership. 

Must-Have Qualifications 

  • 6+ years in software engineering, with 2+ years as a tech lead owning end-to-end delivery of LLM/AI-powered systems (not a pure design/review architect role). 
  • Proven track record of shipping AI-powered features on committed timelines, including hands-on troubleshooting under delivery pressure. 
  • Strong, hands-on Python skills at an architectural/systems level. 
  • Proven experience architecting LLM API integrations and SDK-level abstractions across multiple providers. 
  • Demonstrated judgment on model selection (cost, latency, capability trade-offs) across use cases. 
  • Deep expertise in prompt engineering and context window management at scale. 
  • Proven design experience with RAG systems, including vector database architecture and knowledgebase design. 
  • Experience architecting AI agents/multi-agent systems and tool-use patterns (MCP or equivalent). 
  • Strong understanding of guardrails design — content safety, PII protection, compliance controls for AI outputs. 
  • Experience defining evaluation frameworks and integrating AI testing into CI/CD. 
  • Proven ability to design for latency, observability, and cost management of AI systems in production. 
  • Financial-services or regulated-industry experience strongly preferred given compliance/guardrail stakes. 
  • Strong stakeholder communication; able to directly manage day-to-day delivery of an offshore team (standups, unblocking, sprint accountability). 

Nice-to-Have Qualifications 

  • Direct experience with specific frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, or equivalent). 
  • Experience with AWS Bedrock or comparable managed LLM platforms. 
  • Contributions to or deep familiarity with MCP (Model Context Protocol) implementations. 
  • Experience building internal LLM gateways. 
  • Familiarity with responsible-AI/model-risk-management frameworks used in financial services.

Compensation, Benefits and Duration

Minimum Compensation: USD 56,000
Maximum Compensation: USD 196,000
Compensation is based on actual experience and qualifications of the candidate. The above is a reasonable and a good faith estimate for the role.
Medical, vision, and dental benefits, 401k retirement plan, variable pay/incentives, paid time off, and paid holidays are available for full-time employees.
This position is not available for independent contractors
No applications will be considered if received more than 120 days after the date of this post

Published August 24, 2026
Location United States, United States of America
Category AI & Research  
Job Type Full-Time