AI Engineer

As an AI Engineer at Distyl AI, you design, build, and operate production-grade AI systems within client environments, owning end-to-end workflows and collaborating with customers, subject matter experts, and fellow Distyl engineers to deliver reliable production AI solutions.

Location

New York, NY, hybrid work arrangement.

Compensation

Base salary range: USD 150,000 to 250,000 per year. Eligible for meaningful equity and a comprehensive benefits package.

Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, and operate AI systems within client environments, owning their behavior, reliability, and production value.
• Develop integrated AI workflows that blend models, prompts, agents, tools, retrieval, evaluation, feedback loops, and execution into cohesive production systems aligned with user and SME needs.
• Create clean, maintainable Python services and application logic to embed AI capabilities into client workflows, data platforms, APIs, and legacy applications.
• Monitor live systems, measure behavior, identify failure modes, debug issues, and iterate rapidly to enhance quality, reliability, and user value.
• Develop evaluation frameworks, tests, feedback mechanisms, and observability patterns to help teams assess and improve AI performance over time.
• Collaborate with client stakeholders and SMEs to map workflows, clarify requirements, evaluate tradeoffs, and adapt systems as needs evolve.
• Leverage AI-native engineering tools to accelerate implementation, debugging, experimentation, data analysis, and system improvement.
• Work with fellow AI Engineers, AI Strategists, and Distyl colleagues to balance speed, robustness, maintainability, and customer impact in system design decisions.
• Take accountability for the production outcomes of the components, workflows, and systems you build.

Requirements

• 2+ years of software engineering experience.
• Ownership mentality for AI systems. You are responsible for delivering intended value in production, comfortable making technical decisions, learning from system behavior, and owning outcomes.
• Experience building AI systems. You have built applications powered by LLMs or other AI models and can compose prompts, agents, tools, retrieval, evaluators, workflows, and integrations into end-to-end systems, reasoning about system behavior holistically.
• Strong engineering fundamentals. You write clean, maintainable Python and build production software, with understanding of versioning, debugging, testing, performance, code reviews, and production readiness.
• AI-native working style. You use AI tools daily to write and debug code, explore designs, analyze data, and automate repetitive work, and you actively incorporate new model capabilities into your work.
• Comfort in customer environments. You work directly with client teams, ask insightful questions, adapt quickly to new domains, and communicate clearly about system behavior, limitations, and tradeoffs in high-trust, high-visibility contexts.
• Pragmatic delivery mindset. You navigate ambiguity, progress with incomplete information, and balance speed with robustness for production-grade systems.
• Willingness to travel. Travel is typically 10–30%, depending on the project, customer needs, and your role on the engagement.

Technologies

Python

Benefits

• The base salary range for this role is $150K – $250K, depending on experience, location, and level. In addition to base compensation, this role is eligible for meaningful equity, along with a comprehensive benefits package.
• 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents.
• Flexible time off.
• Retirement and financial planning benefits, including access to pre-tax HSA, FSA, commuter accounts, 401(k), and financial coaching resources.
• Comprehensive wellness benefits, including physical fitness, mental well-being, and fertility and family-building benefits through Carrot.
• Complimentary in-office lunches and snacks provided.
• Access to state-of-the-art AI models, generous usage of modern AI tools, and real-world business problems.
• Ownership of high-impact projects across top enterprises.
• A mission-driven, fast-moving culture that values curiosity, pragmatism, and excellence.

About Distyl AI

Distyl is an applied AI technology company partnering with the world’s most ambitious institutions to rearchitect critical operations for the frontier of AI. Our customers include the largest companies in telecom, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, consumer goods, and global social organizations. We research and deploy technologies that power AI-native operations for both our partners and for Distyl itself.

What we are looking for

• AI Engineers design and operate production AI systems delivering business value within client environments. This role suits engineers who handle ambiguity, own outcomes, and work directly on AI systems that must perform reliably under enterprise constraints.
• AI Engineers are practical builders who design, implement, deploy, and iterate end-to-end AI systems in close collaboration with customers, SMEs, and other Distyl engineers. They translate messy operational needs into concrete system behavior and build the software and AI workflows required, continuously improving systems through evaluation, feedback, integration, and production iteration.
• This is not a demo role. AI Engineers are expected to make AI systems work in practice with users, data, constraints, and accountability for production outcomes.