Senior AI Engineer (*3-Year LTE)
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation18 hours ago
Base Salary
$203k - $315k/yr
Responsibilities
- Design and build agentic AI systems with multi-step workflows, tool use, autonomous task orchestration, and modern LLM frameworks.
- Build and operate retrieval systems involving ingestion, chunking, embeddings, vector search, and knowledge-graph-backed retrieval.
- Design AI evaluation pipelines and benchmarks and monitor model, agent, and retrieval quality in production.
- Architect, implement, and maintain scalable backend services and APIs.
- Make architectural decisions involving model selection, hosting, frameworks, and infrastructure tradeoffs, while mentoring other engineers.
- Develop data pipelines and workflows using Azure AI services, Azure Databricks, and Hugging Face.
- Harden prototypes for production through testing, observability, cost and latency monitoring, failure handling, and documentation.
- Collaborate with researchers, analysts, program staff, and external stakeholders to translate domain problems into software systems.
- Identify knowledge, data, and tooling gaps and propose pragmatic solutions.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in a technical field and 5+ years of experience building production software, or equivalent experience.
- Strong backend engineering ability, including debugging across systems and shipping reliable services.
- Proficiency in Python for general software and AI development, including experience with PyTorch, Hugging Face, or similar tools.
- Hands-on production experience with LLM applications, including RAG, agentic workflows, tool use, and prompt engineering.
- Experience designing and operating backend APIs and services in cloud environments, ideally Azure or equivalent AWS or GCP environments.
- Experience building AI evaluations and observability systems that measure quality, cost, and latency.
- Experience with data pipelines, ETL, MLOps or AI Ops workflows, and cloud data services.
- Experience with Git, CI/CD, Docker, infrastructure-as-code, and broader DevOps practices.
- Ability to make and explain architectural tradeoffs, mentor others, and take projects from prototype to relied-upon production systems.
- Experience with vector databases, knowledge graphs, information architecture, model adaptation, or interactive demos using Streamlit or Gradio is preferred.
- Exposure to scientific, public health, geospatial, or climate datasets; open-source AI engagement; or publications, patents, and other public artifacts is preferred but not required.
- Ability to work directly with researchers and non-engineers and hold unrestricted work authorization in the country where the position is located.
Benefits
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums.
- Generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contributions, and regional holidays.
- Opportunities to engage in employee communities and an inclusive, mission-driven workplace.
- Seattle, Washington-based position with relocation support.
- 36-month limited-term employment arrangement.
- Employment is contingent upon successful completion of a background check.
Categories
About Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a Seattle-based private nonprofit that funds global health, development, U.S. education, and gender equality through grants and program-related investments. Founded in 2000, it partners with governments, researchers, and NGOs to fight infectious disease, improve agriculture and financial inclusion, and expand equitable learning opportunities. Its endowment, backed by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett, finances long-term initiatives in low- and middle-income countries.