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Staff AI Engineer

Jobgether · New Zealand · Full time · Onsite

About this role

Staff AI Engineer role at Jobgether in New Zealand. Lead the design, build and deployment of production‑grade AI systems, shape the shared AI platform, and influence architecture across teams. Ideal for an experienced backend engineer with deep LLM and AI agent expertise.

Key details

• Location: New Zealand
• Pay: Competitive salary package.
• Level: Senior

What you'll do

• Lead technical design, development and delivery of major AI initiatives such as AI‑powered assistants and generative AI features
• Contribute directly to production AI systems from the outset, improving existing architecture and workflows
• Drive early improvements in AI quality, reliability and performance through evaluation frameworks and measurable enhancements
• Own major AI projects from architecture and technical planning through deployment and ongoing optimisation
• Define and influence architectural decisions across engineering teams, focusing on AI architecture and shared platform infrastructure
• Establish scalable AI quality frameworks including automated evaluations, regression testing, guardrails, agent tracing, human feedback mechanisms and production monitoring
• Design and implement reliable AI agents and tool integrations balancing deterministic code and LLM capabilities while addressing security, latency, reliability and cost
• Drive broader engineering initiatives that improve development quality and velocity, such as AI evaluation standards, agentic software development practices, code review processes and technical documentation

What you'll need

• Extensive experience in software engineering at Staff Engineer or equivalent level
• Demonstrated experience designing, building and deploying production‑grade LLM applications, AI agents or generative AI features used by real customers
• Strong technical leadership skills and ability to influence architectural decisions across teams
• Proven experience building and maintaining AI evaluation frameworks that combine automated testing, agent traces, human feedback and production monitoring
• Strong understanding of AI agent architecture, tool design and orchestration
• Experience designing secure and reliable tool boundaries, human‑in‑the‑loop workflows and systems balancing performance, latency, security and operational costs
• Sound judgment in build‑versus‑buy decisions, model selection and AI provider integrations
• Strong backend and platform engineering expertise, particularly with Python and Django, PostgreSQL, Redis, asynchronous workers, and REST or GraphQL APIs
• Ability to design scalable shared AI infrastructure with well‑defined interfaces, efficient caching strategies and robust tenant isolation
• Excellent problem‑solving, communication and collaboration skills

Tech stack

Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Redis, asynchronous workers, REST, GraphQL APIs

What's on offer

• Opportunity to build and ship production AI solutions used daily by real customers
• Broad technical scope across multiple AI products and shared infrastructure
• Significant architectural influence and participation in major technical decision‑making processes
• Access to a proprietary dataset from approximately 1,200 aesthetic medical practices
• High‑autonomy, high‑ownership Staff‑level individual contributor role with direct influence over the AI roadmap and engineering strategy
• Opportunity to contribute to meaningful technology that empowers independent business owners and supports long‑term growth of small businesses
• Collaborative, inclusive, and ownership‑driven engineering culture that values speed, care, continuous learning and simplicity
• Workplace that welcomes diverse backgrounds and perspectives, with accommodations available throughout the recruitment process

How to stand out for this role

Likely interview topics

• Technical leadership and architectural decision making for AI systems
• Designing and maintaining AI evaluation frameworks and quality assurance
• Balancing deterministic logic with LLM‑based solutions in agent design
• Building scalable shared AI infrastructure with Python/Django and PostgreSQL/Redis
• Security, latency and cost considerations in AI agent orchestration

Keywords to mirror in your CV

Staff Engineer, AI agents, generative AI features, AI evaluation frameworks, Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Redis, REST

What to show

• Prototype of a production‑ready AI assistant demonstrating end‑to‑end deployment on Python/Django with PostgreSQL and Redis
• Sample AI agent with automated evaluation and guardrails showing performance metrics and human‑in‑the‑loop workflow
• Code repository of a scalable AI platform component illustrating efficient caching and tenant isolation

How to apply

Use the "Apply on company website" button to continue to Jobgether's careers page and submit your application there.

Source: Adzuna