Staff AI Engineer - Architecture skills

ABOUT THE ROLE

At Shift, we are building the next generation of AI-driven platform capabilities. We are looking for an experienced, hands-on Staff AI Engineer to serve as the technical anchor for our AI capabilities; someone who is deeply passionate about building, prototyping, and scaling modern AI/LLM systems, while helping shape our broader AI engineering strategy.

This is a high-impact, high-visibility role for a senior builder who excels at the intersection of cutting-edge AI technologies (Agentic frameworks, LLM orchestration, MCP, GenAI) and production-grade software engineering. You will work directly with data scientists, software engineers, and product leaders to design, prototype, and ship state-of-the-art AI systems into production.

If you are a senior AI engineer looking for the next step in your career -where you can drive architectural strategy and mentor others without giving up hands-on coding and building- this role is for you.

• Build & Architect Agentic Systems (Hands-On): Lead by doing. Design, prototype, and build production-ready agentic workflows, custom orchestration layers, and tool-calling integrations using modern frameworks.
• Bridge AI & Production Engineering: Move AI prototypes into robust, production-grade microservices on Azure. Ensure AI components are scalable, low-latency, and well-integrated into the broader tech stack.
• Implement Next-Gen AI Standards: Experiment with and integrate emerging paradigms into our production stack, including Model Context Protocol (MCP), advanced RAG patterns, vector pipelines, and structured LLM outputs.
• Drive AI Quality & LLMOps: Establish and implement operational frameworks for experiment tracking, evaluations, prompt engineering, latency optimization, token budget governance, and model observability.
• Influence & Upskill: Act as a technical mentor for agent-focused engineering squads. Lead technical design reviews, set coding standards, and help elevate the team's AI engineering capabilities.
• Stay at the Cutting Edge: Continuously benchmark new models, AI tools, and architectures, translating relevant breakthroughs into practical, value-driving implementations at Shift.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are seeking a seasoned AI engineer who combines deep, practical expertise in modern GenAI/LLM ecosystems with strong backend software engineering skills.