AI Engineer

Duke Careers•Durham, NC

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Office of Information Technology is looking for an AI Engineer to join our Data Analytics Practice and help advance how Duke uses artificial intelligence across academic, research, and administrative communities. In this role, you’ll design and build AI-powered applications and services—leveraging modern technologies such as large language models—to unlock new capabilities and improve access to institutional knowledge. You’ll collaborate closely with data engineering, analytics, and domain teams to integrate AI into Duke’s broader data ecosystem, delivering scalable, production-ready solutions. This role is ideal if you enjoy building real-world applications, learning rapidly evolving AI technologies, and applying them thoughtfully in complex, mission-driven environments.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, data science, or a related technical field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Strong software engineering skills, including proficiency in Python or a similar programming language.
Experience building and deploying enterprise applications, services, and APIs.
Hands-on experience working with large language models (LLMs) and modern AI frameworks or platforms.
Understanding of cloud environments and experience deploying scalable, production-ready solutions.
Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work effectively in collaborative, evolving environments.

Nice To Haves

Experience with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), embeddings, vector databases, and semantic search techniques.
Familiarity with tools and frameworks such as OpenAI APIs, Hugging Face, LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar technologies.
Experience integrating AI solutions with institutional data sources, including APIs, data warehouses, and document repositories.
Knowledge of modern development practices such as CI/CD, containerization, and version control.
Familiarity with data engineering concepts (data pipelines, data modeling, workflow orchestration tools).
Master’s degree with a focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, or software engineering.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, and deploy AI-powered applications and services that leverage LLMs and modern AI techniques to support Duke’s academic, research, and administrative needs.
Collaborate with data engineering, analytics, and domain teams to integrate institutional data while ensuring appropriate governance, privacy, and security.
Build scalable APIs, microservices, and user-facing applications that enable capabilities such as semantic search, summarization, conversational interfaces, and retrieval-augmented generation.
Implement data pipelines and retrieval layers using embeddings, vector databases, and indexing strategies to support efficient access to structured and unstructured data.
Establish and promote best practices for responsible AI, including model evaluation, bias mitigation, privacy protection, and compliance with institutional policies.