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Blank Metal is an AI-native engineering company that partners with enterprises to deliver production AI systems at scale. The company blends strategic insight with hands-on execution, shipping high-impact AI applications that drive measurable business results.
In this Senior AI Engineer role, you will be a technical leader who shapes Blank Metal's approach to AI engineering. You combine deep technical expertise with mentorship and vision, architecting complex AI systems and making critical technical decisions that elevate the entire team's capabilities.
Key responsibilities include:
- Leading technical architecture and strategy for AI-powered projects
- Designing scalable, production-grade systems that handle real-world complexity and edge cases
- Making critical decisions about tooling, frameworks, and architectural patterns
- Owning the quality and reliability of systems in production
- Mentoring and developing other engineers on the team
- Driving technical discussions and establishing team standards
- Building observability and evaluation frameworks for AI systems
- Staying current with emerging AI tools and techniques
- Partnering with product and client teams to translate business needs into technical solutions
- Contributing to longer-term technical vision and innovation
The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in production AI systems design, scalability, and reliability. You have extensive hands-on experience building, deploying, and operating AI systems at scale. You excel at system design, architecting complex AI integrations that scale and provide excellent observability. You possess expert knowledge of LLM APIs, vector databases, prompt engineering, agents, and emerging AI tools. You are fluent across the full stack—frontend, backend, and infrastructure—with advanced development skills. You have experience building evaluation frameworks and monitoring for AI systems. Most importantly, you are a technical leader who mentors others, sets standards, and drives architectural decisions while connecting technical choices to business outcomes.
Why this role is compelling: You'll build AI that ships—every project ends in live deployment, not a slide deck. The company emphasizes craft and quality while maintaining startup velocity. Projects are outcome-driven and aligned with client success. You'll work in an AI-native culture with peers who deeply understand modern AI's potential and limitations, with real collaboration and space to bring your voice and creativity.
REQUIREMENTS:
- At least 5 years of professional software engineering experience with demonstrated ability to deliver production-ready AI features that real users depend on
- Proven record of shipping complex, mission-critical software
- Strong full-stack and/or backend development skills applied to real projects
- Experience designing and leading technically challenging work from concept through delivery
- Demonstrated ability to guide others, share knowledge, and influence technical direction
NICE TO HAVE:
- Experience building RAG systems at scale
- Deep experience with vector databases and semantic search
- Background in AI observability, evaluation frameworks, or monitoring
- Experience with agent-based architectures and agentic AI systems
- Understanding of inference optimization and model serving
- Previous mentorship or technical leadership roles
- Contribution to AI-focused open source projects
