Lead AI Engineer

Keywords Studios in Pune, Maharashtra, India, is seeking a Lead AI Engineer to join their innovative AI team. This role is instrumental in building next-generation AI capabilities, focusing on areas such as AI Agents for automated issue resolution, User Intent Detection, AI-Powered Answers, Knowledge Base Enhancements, Agent CoPilot for improved agent productivity, and advanced LLM-based systems, proprietary ML models, and multimodal RAG pipelines.

The AI team comprises Backend Engineers, Full-stack Developers, ML Engineers, Data Scientists, and Frontend Developers, fostering a collaborative environment to deliver intelligent and scalable AI experiences.

As a Lead AI Engineer, you will leverage deep technical expertise in AI and strong leadership skills to design and deliver advanced AI products and AI Agents. You will lead a group of engineers and drive end-to-end execution of LLM-powered initiatives. This position blends hands-on AI/ML and LLM engineering with technical leadership, guiding cross-functional developers to build reliable, scalable production AI systems.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and mentor a team of backend and frontend developers, promoting a high-performing and collaborative engineering culture.
• Define the technical direction, architecture, and strategy for LLM, AI Agent, and ML initiatives.
• Architect and develop AI Agents, RAG pipelines (including multimodal RAG), LLM-based services, and robust evaluation frameworks.
• Design, build, and deploy scalable AI/ML systems from inception through to production.
• Collaborate closely with Product Managers, ML Engineers, and Data Scientists to translate business requirements into effective AI-driven solutions.
• Oversee the complete Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) for your team, ensuring adherence to strong engineering practices in coding, testing, quality, and reliability.
• Conduct thorough technical reviews and provide guidance to maintain high code quality.
• Troubleshoot and resolve performance, scalability, and reliability issues in production AI systems.
• Champion continuous improvement, automation, and innovation within the team.
• Keep the team informed about the latest advancements in LLMs, LLMOps, fine-tuning techniques, vector search, and generative AI.

Requirements:

• 8-10 years of experience in software development.
• Over 5 years of hands-on experience in AI/ML.
• More than 2 years in an engineering leadership role, preferably managing a cross-functional team.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience in building:
  • AI Agents and agentic workflows.
  • LLM pipelines (inference, orchestration, guardrails).
  • RAG systems (vector search, knowledge bases, multimodal RAG).
  • LLM fine-tuning (SFT, LoRA, instruction tuning).
  • LLMOps workflows (monitoring, evaluation, optimization, versioning).
• Strong understanding of ML algorithms, embeddings, transformers, vector semantics, and distributed systems.
• Experience with Vector Databases such as Elasticsearch, Weaviate, Pinecone, or Milvus.
• Proficiency with ML frameworks including PyTorch, TensorFlow, and scikit-learn.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and MLOps tooling.

Nice to have:

• Solid foundation in backend technologies like Python, Java, Go, Node.js, and experience with Kafka.
• Knowledge of the Gaming industry or Customer Support domain.
• Familiarity with frontend frameworks such as React, Angular, or Vue.js.
• Exposure to functional programming, with Clojure being preferred as the team utilizes it.
• Experience in startup or high-growth environments.
• Contributions to open-source AI/ML/LLM projects.
• Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.

Bonus Points:

• Experience building production-grade LLM-powered automation for customer support or gaming applications.
• Publications, presentations, or contributions related to LLMs, RAG, or AI Agents.

Benefits:

• Hybrid work setup.
• Worker's insurance.
• Paid Time Offs.
• Additional employee benefits will be discussed by the Talent Acquisition team in India.

Keywords Studios promotes diversity and is an equal opportunity employer, not discriminating based on sex, race, color, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, citizenship, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

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