Senior AI Engineer (Ph.D. required)

Exponent • Houston, TX

41d • Onsite

About The Position

Exponent is seeking a Senior AI Engineer for its Data Sciences Practice in Houston, TX. This role involves designing, building, and scaling AI solutions, including generative and agentic AI systems, for clients in various industries such as utilities, energy, life sciences, consumer electronics, and manufacturing. The engineer will collaborate with multidisciplinary scientists and engineers to translate complex, real-world problems into production-grade AI applications, particularly in safety-critical and highly regulated environments.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related field.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience building and deploying machine learning and AI systems in production environments after the completion of the Ph.D.
• Demonstrated experience with generative AI, including LLM application development, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and RAG architectures.
• Experience with agentic frameworks and orchestration tools (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, or comparable).
• Strong software engineering fundamentals in Python; experience with APIs, microservices, and containerization (Docker, ECS/Kubernetes).
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS strongly preferred; Azure or GCP acceptable), including serverless and managed AI/ML services.
• Familiarity with vector databases (e.g., pgvector, Pinecone, OpenSearch) and knowledge graph technologies is a plus.
• Highly proficient in SQL, with the ability to work across large, complex enterprise datasets.
• Experience working in consulting or client-facing roles, with the ability to manage ambiguity and deliver under tight timelines.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Presently legally authorized to work in the United States; no immigration sponsorship or processing required.

Nice To Haves

• Experience applying AI in safety-critical, regulated, or physical-infrastructure industries (utilities, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, transportation).
• Familiarity with AI governance frameworks, model risk management, and trustworthy AI principles.

Responsibilities

• Architecting, developing, and deploying end-to-end AI solutions for clients, from data foundations through model development to production deployment.
• Building generative AI applications, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems, LLM-powered assistants, and domain-specific copilots grounded in enterprise knowledge.
• Designing and implementing agentic AI architectures — multi-agent workflows, tool use, orchestration frameworks, and human-in-the-loop controls — for complex analytical and operational tasks.
• Developing knowledge representation layers (knowledge graphs, ontologies, semantic search) that ground AI systems in trusted, domain-specific context.
• Deploying and scaling AI workloads on cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), including containerized services, vector databases, and MLOps/LLMOps pipelines.
• Rapidly prototyping and iterating on models, analyses, and visualizations in fast-paced, client-facing engagements.
• Implementing responsible AI practices, including evaluation frameworks, guardrails, observability, and alignment with client governance and regulatory requirements.
• Collaborating with Exponent consultants across engineering and scientific disciplines to embed domain expertise into AI solutions.
• Communicating technical approaches and results clearly to both technical and executive client stakeholders.
• Mentoring junior team members and contributing to the growth of Exponent's AI capabilities and reusable assets.

Benefits

• Competitive benefits
• Compensation and recognition programs
• 401(k) employer contribution of 7% of base salary
• Bi-weekly bonuses for high-intensity efforts (at Associate and Senior Associate level)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree