AI Engineer

Direct Supply in Illinois is seeking an AI Engineer to design, ship, and operate AI systems in production across the full product lifecycle. This role involves direct interaction with customers and end-to-end ownership from discovery to deployment, blending hands-on engineering with product-focused outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate AI systems deployed in production environments that customers interact with
• Translate unclear business and customer problems into prototypes and technical specifications
• Assess AI capabilities and apply them where they deliver clear value
• Own the complete application lifecycle from product discovery and experimentation to evaluation, deployment, and monitoring
• Own system design decisions, tradeoffs, and long-term scalability and maintainability considerations
• Develop codebases that are readable by teammates and other developers; advance tooling across the organization
• Collaborate with product managers to enhance product vision, including AI-native solutions

Requirements

• Solid foundations in applied AI and software engineering
• Autonomous builders who can operate across tech, product, and design thinking
• Bias toward shipping quickly, iterating, and incorporating customer feedback over polish
• High ownership and initiative — measured by outcomes rather than deliverables
• Curiosity to improve systems, products, and personal craft
• 2+ years of experience in software engineering or applied AI
• Experience using AI development tools within full-stack applications
• Experience designing AI-based solutions that integrate with real workflows
• Working knowledge of cloud platforms and frontier AI platforms

Technologies

• Python
• C#
• TypeScript
• PostgreSQL
• Anthropic
• OpenAI
• Docker
• Terraform
• AWS

Benefits

• Generous benefit package available

Nice to have

• Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related field
• Experience operating AI systems in production, with attention to evaluation, cost, and performance tradeoffs
• Background in high-ambiguity environments with proximity to customers (for example, early-stage startups, forward-deployed engineering, internal product teams)
• Experience in large-scale Python, C#, and TypeScript codebases
• Experience integrating AI solutions into existing, established products
• Experience working with healthcare, regulated, or sensitive data