Applied AI Engineer

InTecAir, Inc. is building practical AI capabilities that help airline employees and support customer workflows. As an Applied AI Engineer (onsite in Palo Alto, CA), you will turn existing AI models, company knowledge, and core business systems into reliable applications, while owning and improving the systems that power them.

This role focuses on end-to-end applied work: building and maintaining an AI knowledge base, strengthening retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) quality, integrating vision and answer-generation models, and connecting model-driven features to customer-facing flight and booking experiences.

What you’ll do

• Build and maintain the AI knowledge corpus by collecting, cleaning, organizing, and updating documents and structured information while preserving sources, versions, and access permissions.
• Improve retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) through document processing, embeddings, search, and the quality of information returned to models.
• Integrate and maintain models such as Qwen for vision and Gemma for answer generation, including local deployment on Apple silicon.
• Partner with application developers on Apple Intelligence and the Foundation Models framework.
• Develop Model Context Protocol (MCP) and API integrations for customer-facing services such as flight schedules, fare search, and booking workflows, using authoritative business systems for current information.
• Create repeatable evaluations, investigate incorrect answers and integration failures, and improve accuracy, response time, and reliability.
• Document your work and build maintainable systems with appropriate security, privacy, and monitoring.

Requirements

• Demonstrated ability to build working software, including an LLM application, retrieval system, AI integration, or substantial related project.
• Strong programming and debugging skills, especially in Python, with experience using APIs, processing data, and working with Git.
• Practical understanding of how language models use retrieved information and tools, including key limitations.
• Ability to translate an unclear business request into a manageable implementation and clearly explain technical choices.
• Care with source accuracy, confidential information, and testing.
• Independence, curiosity, and willingness to maintain and improve what you build.

Tools and technologies

• Python
• Qwen, Gemma
• Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), embeddings, search, vector search, reranking
• Apple silicon, Apple Intelligence, Foundation Models framework
• Model Context Protocol (MCP), APIs, tool calling, authentication
• Swift, iOS/macOS, MLX
• Automated evaluations, document processing, and related components

Compensation and benefits

Salary: USD 150,000 - 175,000 per year.

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

Helpful experience

• Qwen, Gemma, or comparable open-weight models.
• RAG pipelines, vector search, reranking, and automated evaluations.
• MCP servers, tool calling, authentication, and business-system integrations.
• Swift, iOS/macOS development, Apple Intelligence, Foundation Models, or MLX.
• Local or offline AI deployment, multilingual applications, document processing, or computer vision.
• Experience with airline, travel, commerce, or other operational systems.

How the team works

InTecAir encourages using AI tools for development, research, documentation, and content preparation. You will use them to move faster while understanding, testing, and taking responsibility for the work and outcomes. The role includes direct ownership and access to real airline problems as part of building a growing internal AI capability.