Senior AI Engineer (Ph.D. required)
Exponent, Inc.7 days ago
Houston, TX, USASenior
Responsibilities
- Architect, develop, and deploy end-to-end AI solutions from data foundations and model development through production deployment.
- Build generative AI applications, including retrieval-augmented generation systems, LLM-powered assistants, and domain-specific copilots.
- Design agentic AI architectures with multi-agent workflows, tool use, orchestration, and human-in-the-loop controls.
- Develop knowledge representation layers such as knowledge graphs, ontologies, and semantic search.
- Deploy and scale AI workloads on cloud infrastructure, including containerized services, vector databases, and MLOps/LLMOps pipelines.
- Prototype models, analyses, and visualizations for fast-paced client engagements.
- Implement responsible AI practices including evaluation frameworks, guardrails, observability, and governance alignment.
- Collaborate with multidisciplinary scientists and engineers to embed domain expertise into AI solutions.
- Communicate technical approaches and results to technical and executive client stakeholders.
- Mentor junior team members and contribute reusable AI capabilities and assets.
Requirements
- Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related field.
- At least 5 years of hands-on experience building and deploying machine learning and AI systems in production after completing the Ph.D.
- Experience with generative AI, LLM application development, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and RAG architectures.
- Experience with agentic frameworks and orchestration tools such as LangChain, LangGraph, or LlamaIndex.
- Strong Python software engineering fundamentals and experience with APIs, microservices, and containerization.
- Hands-on experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP, including serverless and managed AI/ML services.
- Highly proficient in SQL and able to work with large, complex enterprise datasets.
- Experience in consulting or client-facing roles and the ability to deliver under ambiguity and tight timelines.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Presently legally authorized to work in the United States without immigration sponsorship or processing.
- Preferred experience applying AI in safety-critical, regulated, or physical-infrastructure industries.
- Preferred familiarity with AI governance frameworks, model risk management, and trustworthy AI principles.
- Applicants are encouraged to submit a CV with publications, including publications under review or pending.
Benefits
- The role is based in Houston, Texas, with in-person office work expected unless traveling for client work or other business activities.
- Flexible, agile working hours support client meetings, inspection-site visits, conferences, and personal priorities.
- Benefits include health and well-being programs, competitive benefits and recognition programs, annual and bi-weekly bonuses, and a 401(k) employer contribution of 7% of base salary.
- Exponent provides mentoring, career growth, and a collaborative multidisciplinary work environment.
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