AI Engineer

100% remote (Illinois) contract opportunity for an AI Engineer (1099) with Acliviti Consulting Group, LLC. You will design and develop conversational AI solutions and integrate AI and LLM capabilities into enterprise systems, with a strong emphasis on rapid learning of the Cognigy platform. This role pairs hands-on engineering with an outcome-driven delivery model focused on customer experience transformation before, during, and after implementation.

What you’ll do

• Guide clients through a continuous improvement cycle across Strategy, Execution, and Managed Solutions & Support.
• Support customer journey planning and delivery by helping define Customer Experience Design, Performance Optimization, and Transformation Capabilities.
• Lead execution across people, platforms, and processes, including Technical Platform & Capabilities, Operational Management, and Data & Analytics.
• Stay engaged post-launch with Operational & Technical Oversight, Outcome & Expense Management, and Artificial Intelligence & Data Segmentation.
• Design and develop conversational AI such as chatbots, virtual agents, or voice assistants, then optimize AI interactions using performance metrics and user feedback.
• Develop and consume REST APIs and integrate AI solutions into existing technology ecosystems.
• Create and run test cases for software and AI applications, including conversational AI testing and validation, API and integration testing, regression testing, and performance and reliability testing.

What you bring

• Demonstrated experience with conversational AI, virtual agents, LLMs, APIs, integrations, and software engineering, plus the ability to quickly learn the Cognigy platform.
• Experience with one or more conversational AI platforms such as Dialogflow, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Amazon Lex, Google CCAI, Kore.ai, IBM Watson, Yellow.ai, Voiceflow, or similar.
• Understanding of conversational flows and dialogue management, including intents and business logic.
• Generative AI and LLM experience, including prompt engineering and LLM configuration.
• Knowledge of AI response validation, including guardrails, fallback logic, and escalation.
• Strong JavaScript / TypeScript (or comparable) and Python experience preferred.
• Experience with REST APIs and data exchange, including authentication, webhooks, and working with JSON and event-driven integrations.
• Working knowledge of Git/GitHub (or similar) and strong debugging and troubleshooting skills.
• Cloud and tooling familiarity: AWS, Azure, or GCP, cloud-based architecture, Docker, and CI/CD.
• Ability to test across Development, QA, UAT, and Production environments, with familiarity with logging and monitoring.
• Experience integrating with enterprise systems and third-party SaaS platforms, including CRM/ERP, and authentication mechanisms such as OAuth, API keys, and tokens.
• Understanding of one or more LLM platforms: OpenAI / Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or similar. RAG / knowledge retrieval is preferred, and experience with embeddings and vector databases is a plus.
• AI safety, security, privacy, and governance knowledge.
• Working style aligned to Agile/Scrum, with experience in Jira or similar, translating user stories and acceptance criteria into technical solutions, documenting work, estimating effort, and collaborating with Architects, PMs, Product Owners, and client stakeholders.
• Conversational AI testing and validation, API and integration testing, regression testing, and performance and reliability testing experience.
• Experience analyzing AI/conversation performance to identify improvement opportunities and resolve technical defects by identifying root causes.

Nice-to-have

• Voice AI familiarity, including speech recognition and text-to-speech.
• Experience implementing AI agents or agentic workflows.
• Contact center experience is preferred: knowledge of platforms such as Five9, NICE CXone, Genesys, or Amazon Connect, plus understanding call routing concepts and integrating AI into contact center environments.

Why this role fits Acliviti’s culture

Acliviti is remote-first and cross-functional, with experts in customer experience delivering operational and technical transformation. The team acts as strategic partners who stay engaged before, during, and after implementation, translating CX vision into technical platforms and financial value. They emphasize outcome-driven delivery, recognizing that 95% of spend is human capital rather than tech alone. If you enjoy building new things, learning quickly, anticipating and solving problems, and seeing your work directly impact client outcomes, this environment is designed for that pace and collaboration.

Core technologies: Cognigy, Dialogflow, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Amazon Lex, Google CCAI, Kore.ai, IBM Watson, Yellow.ai, Voiceflow, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, REST APIs, JSON, webhooks, Git/GitHub, OAuth, API keys/tokens, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, RAG, embeddings, vector databases, AWS/Azure/GCP, Docker, CI/CD, Jira.