AI/ML Engineer - Higher Ed
About The Position
The AI/ML Engineer – Higher Education builds AI capabilities for Cengage's higher education products to improve student engagement, learning outcomes, and instructor productivity. You will design, build, and ship production AI features integrated directly into platforms used by millions of students and faculty. This role requires a builder who ships weekly, cares about learning science, and can design AI experiences that genuinely improve educational outcomes. The ideal candidate has experience shipping production ML or LLM features, understands the nuances of higher education workflows, and balances research-driven thinking with shipping discipline.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field
- 4+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 2 years focused on AI/ML
- Strong proficiency in Python with experience building production ML or LLM systems
- Hands-on experience with modern AI APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock)
- Experience with RAG architectures, vector databases, and embedding models
- Solid software engineering fundamentals including testing, CI/CD, and system design
- Experience shipping production features at scale (thousands or millions of users)
- Strong communication skills to work with product, design, and research partners
Nice To Haves
- Experience in EdTech or adjacent domains with production education AI features
- Familiarity with agentic AI frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI)
- Background in learning science, educational psychology, or instructional design
- Experience with FERPA compliance and education-industry data handling
- Familiarity with accessibility standards (WCAG, Section 508, DOJ accessibility)
- Experience with fine-tuning, LoRA, or custom model training
Responsibilities
- Ship and improve AI features weekly across Cengage HED platforms
- Build and integrate Student Assistant capabilities including tutoring, hinting, and feedback
- Develop Instructor Insight Assistant features for course analytics and at-risk student identification
- Create Content Studio capabilities for AI-assisted content authoring and adaptation
- Integrate LLMs, RAG systems, and agentic workflows into HED platform architectures
- Integrate AI features into existing HED platform architectures and data systems
- Partner with platform engineering on API design, scaling, and production deployment
- Build retrieval systems against Cengage's proprietary content library (books, assessments, media)
- Ensure AI features meet FERPA compliance and accessibility standards (WCAG, DOJ)
- Resolve technical blockers and production issues with urgency
- Monitor feature usage, engagement, and learning outcome impact
- Track and improve model performance on quality, cost, and latency dimensions
- Partner with learning scientists and researchers on efficacy measurement
- Iterate rapidly based on student feedback, instructor feedback, and usage telemetry
- Maintain documentation and engineering runbooks for deployed AI features
Benefits
- Opportunity to shape AI at scale across a global learning company
- Direct impact on business outcomes, product, and workforce productivity
- Access to cutting-edge AI tools, platforms, and technologies
- Collaborative team environment focused on innovation and continuous improvement
- Comprehensive and rewarding Total Rewards package
- Eligible to participate in the company’s discretionary incentive bonus program
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
