Staff / Principal AI Engineer

Vaco by Highspring is seeking a Staff or Principal AI Engineer to shape and deliver next-generation AI powered products, platforms, and internal capabilities. This onsite role in Gilbert, Arizona combines hands-on technical leadership with a product-minded approach to deploying AI across customer-facing offerings and internal operations. The position offers a salary range of USD 170,000 to 190,000 per year and requires at least eight years of experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of scalable AI and machine learning solutions across product and internal business use cases
• Architect generative AI systems, LLM-powered workflows, agentic solutions, and AI-enabled product features
• Build and optimize LLMOps pipelines that support reliable deployment, evaluation, monitoring, and iteration of AI models
• Partner with product, architecture, data, engineering, innovation, and marketing teams to identify where AI can create measurable business impact
• Drive AI innovation within customer-facing products, training platforms, digital experiences, and lead conversion workflows
• Evaluate and implement approaches for prompt engineering, context management, embeddings, retrieval, and model optimization
• Design AI systems with feedback loops, automated retraining, fine-tuning, and lifecycle management where appropriate
• Build data pipelines and preprocessing workflows that ensure data quality, security, and regulatory alignment
• Provide hands-on technical leadership through architecture reviews, code contributions, proof-of-concepts, and implementation guidance
• Mentor AI engineers and partner with architects across application, product, CRM, and data domains
• Help establish standards, documentation, and best practices for responsible AI development and deployment
• Stay current on emerging AI trends, including AI’s impact on digital marketing, Answer Engine Optimization, Generative Engine Optimization, and customer discovery behavior

Requirements

• 8 or more years of progressive experience across software engineering, data, analytics, machine learning, AI engineering, or related technology roles
• 1 or more years of experience developing and implementing analytical, AI, or machine learning applications
• Hands-on experience building and deploying LLM-based solutions, generative AI applications, or AI-powered product features
• Strong understanding of machine learning, natural language processing, large language models, embeddings, retrieval patterns, and model evaluation
• Experience with Python, SQL, Hugging Face, Snowflake, and modern ML or analytics tooling
• Experience designing AI or ML solutions in Azure or comparable cloud environments
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, Docker, Kubernetes, MLflow, or similar MLOps and lifecycle management tools
• Ability to translate ambiguous AI opportunities into practical, scalable engineering solutions
• Strong product mindset with interest in customer experience, product innovation, marketing enablement, and business impact
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, influence technical direction, and guide best practices
• Strong communication skills with the ability to present complex AI concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field preferred, or equivalent professional experience

Technologies

• Python
• SQL
• Hugging Face
• Snowflake
• Azure
• Docker
• Kubernetes
• MLflow
• Azure AI services

Benefits

• Medical benefits
• Dental benefits
• Vision benefits
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Discretionary bonuses

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Canadian residents may access our policies in English here and in French here.

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Pay Transparency Notice

the individual’s skill sets, experience and training; licensure and certification requirements; office location and other geographic considerations; other business and organizational needs.