Lead AI Engineer, NLQ & Agentic Systems

Upwork•Toronto, ON

12d•CA$179,000 - CA$302,500•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Lead AI Engineer on our Data Platform & Services (DPS) team, you will bridge deep data engineering expertise with emerging AI capabilities to build production-grade AI-powered systems. You’ll design and deploy agentic frameworks, natural language querying (NLQ) capabilities, and prompt/LLM evaluation strategies that unlock insights at scale across Upwork. This is an opportunity to deliver tangible impact, enabling faster decision-making, democratizing data access, and empowering analysts and stakeholders throughout the company.

Requirements

Proven experience delivering AI-powered data systems in production, including hands-on expertise with LLMs and prompt engineering.
Strong foundation in modern data engineering, with proficiency in Python, SQL, and platforms such as Snowflake.
Demonstrated ability to design agentic orchestration frameworks that scale across diverse business scenarios.
A collaborative problem-solver with strong communication skills, able to align stakeholders and create clarity across teams.
Growth mindset—excited to learn, iterate, and deliver measurable business outcomes through applied AI.

Responsibilities

Design and implement scalable agentic frameworks that coordinate multiple AI agents to deliver accurate and reliable outcomes.
Build and optimize natural language query solutions that provide compliant, intuitive, and self-service access to enterprise data.
Develop and maintain evaluation frameworks for LLMs and prompts, driving measurable improvements in accuracy, scalability, and resilience.
Partner with data engineering peers to integrate AI orchestration with Python, SQL, and Snowflake pipelines.
Contribute to AI-powered summarization and explanation tools that enhance reporting, insights, and executive reviews.
Collaborate cross-functionally with product, analytics, and business teams to ensure solutions meet measurable business goals.