AI Agent Engineer

Ochsner Health•New Orleans, LA

1d•Remote

About The Position

The AI Agent Engineer modifies and creates iO products through observation, design, refinement, encoding, testing, and installation. The role is a primary resource for creating, maturing, and implementing innovative solutions that improve efficiency, clinical outcomes, and financial savings. It also serves as a mentor and trusted advisor to the Epic team and the broader IS department. This position designs and builds production-grade AI agents for voice and chat, integrates agents with clinical and operational systems, and iterates on agent behavior, routing, and prompts to fit Ochsner workflows and compliance requirements. The engineer tests and improves agents using real-world patient interactions and works with clinical operations, compliance, and IT to meet regulatory, consent, and audit requirements. The role also analyzes processes for AI automation opportunities, maintains professional expertise, mentors colleagues, and performs related duties as required. The position is remote with occasional travel. Variable hours, including nights, evenings, and weekends, may be required. The role involves light physical work. The employer notes that working in a healthcare setting may entail occupational risk of exposure to hazardous medications or hazardous waste; routine work does not involve exposure to blood, body fluids, or tissue, and the incumbent has no occupational risk of exposure to communicable diseases.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree.
Software programming skills in multiple languages.
Effective verbal and written communication skills and the ability to present information clearly and professionally.
Strong interpersonal skills.
Exceptional critical thinking skills and ability to formulate solutions to complex problems.
Ability to generate, evaluate, and communicate useful ideas and persuade others to pursue worthwhile ideas.
Ability to tolerate ambiguity, overcome obstacles, and take reasonable risks.
Ability to be self-motivated, solve problems, and take responsibility for actions.
Ability to work under stressful situations with frequent interruptions and changing priorities.
Ability to work variable hours, including nights, evenings, and weekends, and occasional out-of-town travel.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science, or a related science field.
Five years of experience in healthcare IT, Epic systems, or enterprise AI/ML platforms.
Epic certification in at least one clinical application.
Hands-on experience with large language models and generative AI platforms, such as Google Gemini, OpenAI GPT, Anthropic Claude, or open-source models via Hugging Face.
Experience with prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agentic AI design patterns such as tool use, multiturn reasoning, and function calling.
Familiarity with voice AI platforms and telephony integration, such as Cisco or Eleven Labs.
Experience with healthcare interoperability standards, including HL7 FHIR, Epic APIs, and CDS Hooks.
Knowledge of healthcare compliance frameworks, including HIPAA, patient consent management, and clinical data governance.
Experience with MLOps and AI observability tools for monitoring agent performance, latency, and safety in production, such as LangSmith, Weights & Biases, or Datadog.
Familiarity with conversation design best practices, dialog management frameworks, and natural language understanding evaluation.
Experience building CI/CD pipelines for AI agent deployment, including automated testing, regression suites, and canary release strategies.
Understanding of contact center operations and workforce management as related to AI-assisted call handling and escalation.
Experience with cloud platforms such as GCP, AWS, or Azure and containerized deployment using Docker or Kubernetes.
Prior experience in a healthcare system, health plan, or health-tech startup environment.

Responsibilities

Design and build production-grade AI agents across voice and chat channels, including conversation flow, tool orchestration, and safe escalation logic.
Integrate AI agents with Ochsner’s clinical and operational systems so they can take action, not merely answer questions.
Author and iterate on agent behavior, routing logic, and prompt design based on Ochsner workflows and compliance requirements.
Test and refine agents against real-world patient interactions to improve resolution rates and experience quality.
Partner with clinical operations, compliance, and IT to ensure agents meet regulatory, consent, and audit requirements.
Analyze business processes, functions, and associated technologies to identify AI automation opportunities.
Maintain and enhance professional competencies in AI/ML, healthcare IT, and industry best practices.
Mentor and provide technical guidance to the Epic team, AI engineering peers, and other areas of the IS department.
Perform other related duties as required.
Remain knowledgeable about applicable laws, accreditation standards, and regulatory requirements and ensure compliance.
Report known or suspected unethical or questionable conduct and patient/employee safety, privacy, or other compliance concerns.