Staff AI Engineer - Architecture skills

<div class=&quot;content-intro&quot;><p><span style=&quot;font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;&quot;>Shift delivers AI agents that transform insurers&#39; most critical work. By combining deep industry expertise and unmatched data resources, Shift provides proven results that have earned the trust of hundreds of the world&#39;s leading insurers. Our insurance-grade AI is accurate, explainable, and secure—empowering human experts to move with unmatched speed, total confidence, and a renewed focus on the people they serve.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><video poster=&quot;https://8595762.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/8595762/2026%20Website%20Refresh/2026%20Shift%20Brand%20Video/thumbnail-violet.jpg&quot; controls=&quot;controls&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; height=&quot;150&quot;> &nbsp;&nbsp;<source src=&quot;https://8595762.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/8595762/2026%20Website%20Refresh/2026%20Shift%20Brand%20Video/2026%20Shift%20Brand%20Video%20(English).mp4&quot; type=&quot;video/mp4&quot;> &nbsp;&nbsp;Your browser does not support the video tag.</video></p> <p><span style=&quot;font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;&quot;>Our culture is built on innovation, trust, and a drive to transform the insurance industry through our SaaS platform. We come from more than 50 different countries and cultures and together we are creating the future of insurance.</span></p> <p><span style=&quot;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;&quot;>Learn more at <a href=&quot;http://www.shift-technology.com&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;>www.shift-technology.com</a></span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p></div><h4><strong>ABOUT THE ROLE</strong></h4> <p>At Shift, we are building the next generation of AI-driven platform capabilities. We are looking for an experienced, hands-on <strong>Staff AI Engineer</strong> 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.</p> <p>This is a high-impact, high-visibility role for a senior builder who excels at the intersection of <strong>cutting-edge AI technologies</strong> (Agentic frameworks, LLM orchestration, MCP, GenAI) and <strong>production-grade software engineering</strong>. 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.</p> <p>If you are a senior AI engineer looking for the next step in your career -where you can drive architectural strategy and mentor others <strong>without giving up hands-on coding and building</strong>- this role is for you.<br><br></p> <h4><strong>WHAT YOU&#39;LL DO</strong></h4> <ul> <li><strong>Build &amp; Architect Agentic Systems (Hands-On):</strong> Lead by doing. Design, prototype, and build production-ready agentic workflows, custom orchestration layers, and tool-calling integrations using modern frameworks.</li> <li><strong>Bridge AI &amp; Production Engineering:</strong> 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.</li> <li><strong>Implement Next-Gen AI Standards:</strong> Experiment with and integrate emerging paradigms into our production stack, including Model Context Protocol (MCP), advanced RAG patterns, vector pipelines, and structured LLM outputs.</li> <li><strong>Drive AI Quality &amp; LLMOps:</strong> Establish and implement operational frameworks for experiment tracking, evaluations, prompt engineering, latency optimization, token budget governance, and model observability.</li> <li><strong>Influence &amp; Upskill:</strong> Act as a technical mentor for agent-focused engineering squads. Lead technical design reviews, set coding standards, and help elevate the team&#39;s AI engineering capabilities.</li> <li><strong>Stay at the Cutting Edge:</strong> Continuously benchmark new models, AI tools, and architectures, translating relevant breakthroughs into practical, value-driving implementations at Shift.</li> </ul> <h4><strong><br>WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR</strong></h4> <p>We are seeking a seasoned AI engineer who combines deep, practical expertise in modern GenAI/LLM ecosystems with strong backend software engineering skills.</p> <h4><strong>Deep AI &amp; Agentic Expertise:</strong></h4> <ul> <li><strong>Hands-On Agentic Frameworks:</strong> Proven experience building with frameworks like Microsoft Agent Framework, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, OpenAI Agents SDK, or custom orchestration frameworks.</li> <li><strong>LLM Patterns &amp; Tooling:</strong> Practical experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP), tool/function calling, structured LLM outputs, and complex RAG pipelines (vector retrieval, hybrid search, embeddings).</li> <li><strong>LLMOps &amp; Observability:</strong> Experience with evaluation frameworks, prompt engineering, tracing, context window optimization, and compute/token governance in production.</li> </ul> <h4><strong>Production Engineering &amp; Stack:</strong></h4> <ul> <li><strong>Programming:</strong> High proficiency in <strong>Python</strong> (required for AI ecosystem work) paired with strong experience in <strong>OOP</strong>.</li> <li><strong>Cloud &amp; APIs:</strong> Experience building and scaling backend microservices and REST/OpenAPI endpoints in enterprise cloud environments (specifically <strong>Azure</strong>).</li> <li><strong>Data &amp; Events:</strong> Familiarity with vector databases, relational databases, and event-driven patterns (e.g., Azure Service Bus, Kafka).</li> <li><strong>Engineering Rigor:</strong> Comfortable with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), CI/CD, testing methodologies, and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or Bicep).</li> </ul> <h4><strong>HOW YOU WORK</strong></h4> <ul> <li><strong>Jump in and get things done:</strong> You are a proa…