AI Engineer

Friant & Associates, LLC is seeking an AI Engineer to design, develop, deploy, and maintain scalable AI-powered solutions that support operational efficiency, business intelligence, customer engagement, and process automation. This hands-on role spans the full AI lifecycle, from architecture and development through deployment, monitoring, governance, and continuous improvement.

The position is located in San Leandro, CA and works onsite, with collaboration across data engineering, IT, and business teams to deliver practical, scalable AI capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy AI and machine learning solutions that address business needs and improve operational efficiency.
• Develop and optimize machine learning and deep learning models for predictive analytics, classification, recommendation systems, and automation.
• Build applications using large language models, Generative AI, and intelligent agents.
• Design Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures that securely connect enterprise knowledge bases and business systems.
• Develop and manage AI agents to automate workflows, support business operations, and improve employee productivity.
• Create intelligent document processing solutions to extract, classify, and analyze structured and unstructured data.
• Implement conversational AI solutions, including virtual assistants, copilots, and chatbot platforms.
• Design workflow automation using AI orchestration platforms, APIs, function calling, and tool-use architectures.
• Build and maintain reliable data pipelines for model training, inference, evaluation, and analytics.
• Integrate AI solutions with CRM, ERP, customer support, eCommerce, knowledgebase, and other enterprise applications.
• Develop and maintain APIs, microservices, webhooks, middleware, and event-driven architectures supporting AI deployment.
• Partner with data engineers, IT, and business teams to define practical and scalable AI architecture.
• Monitor model and application performance, reliability, quality, cost, and business impact.
• Implement MLOps and LLMOps practices for deployment, version control, automated evaluation, monitoring, and lifecycle management.
• Apply responsible AI practices, including privacy, security, data governance, and access-control requirements.
• Establish guardrails and risk controls for AI applications, and continuously improve accuracy, latency, scalability, and efficiency.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, architecture diagrams, operating procedures, and user guidance.

Requirements

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (Master’s preferred).
• Experience: 3+ years of hands-on experience developing and deploying AI or machine learning solutions in production environments.
• Core skills: Proficiency in Python and practical experience with SQL, Git/GitHub, REST APIs, and at least one framework such as FastAPI or Flask.
• ML frameworks: TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn, or Hugging Face Transformers.
• ML fundamentals: Supervised and unsupervised learning, deep learning, neural networks, natural language processing, feature engineering, and model evaluation.
• Generative AI / LLM tools: Enterprise Generative AI and LLM technologies including OpenAI APIs, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic APIs, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, MCP, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, function calling, AI agents, and RAG.
• Vector databases / search: Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, Chroma, or Azure AI Search.
• Cloud: Experience with Microsoft Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Platform & operations: Knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, MLflow, model versioning, observability, performance monitoring, or automated evaluation frameworks.

Technologies

• Python, SQL, Git, GitHub, REST APIs, FastAPI, Flask
• TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn, Hugging Face Transformers
• OpenAI APIs, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic APIs, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, MCP, RAG
• Vector databases: Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, Chroma, Azure AI Search
• Cloud: Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform
• Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, MLflow, MLOps, LLMOps

Benefits

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Employee discount
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience implementing AI within CRM, ERP, customer service, eCommerce, or knowledge-management platforms.
• Experience with Zoho CRM, Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft 365, Teams, SharePoint, or Power Platform.
• Knowledge of OCR, document intelligence, intelligent document processing, analytics, reporting, or forecasting solutions.
• Experience supporting Customer Success, Operations, Sales, manufacturing, or warehouse-distribution environments.
• Experience with JavaScript or TypeScript and AI observability or prompt-monitoring platforms.
• Relevant Azure AI, AWS AI/ML, Google Cloud, or other industry certifications are a plus.

Work Location and Scheduling

• Work location: In person
• Location requirement: San Leandro, CA 94577
• Schedule: Full-time, Monday-Friday regular schedule with occasional early morning, evening, or weekend duties
• Support: All employees receive support from San Leandro
• Scheduling flexibility: Occasional need to work outside San Leandro hours due to a second plant in Suffolk, VA, and remote employees across various U.S. cities

Travel Requirements

• Travel to the Suffolk, VA plant/office may be required in rare situations for periods of a week or less.

Additional Information

• Supervisory responsibility: This position has no supervisory responsibilities.
• Work environment: Professional office environment and production environment when necessary; appropriate personal protective equipment required for production areas.
• Physical demands: Regularly required to communicate, use a computer and related equipment, and remain seated or stand for extended periods.
• Visa sponsorship questions: Will you now or in the future require visa sponsorship? and Are you located in the Bay Area/California?

Salary: USD 135,000 per yearly.

Experience level: 3+ years.