Senior AI Engineer

Cornell University•Ithaca, MI

3d•$116,843 - $142,809•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior AI Engineer serves as the technical lead for Cornell’s AI Engineering team, providing expert guidance, architectural leadership, and hands-on development for enterprise AI services. The role designs, develops, and maintains complex production-grade AI applications and systems, ensuring security, scalability, and reliability. It mentors developers and technical leads, establishes engineering best practices, and guides AI projects throughout their development lifecycle. The position directs and evaluates advanced AI solutions, leads the development and enhancement of enterprise AI systems, and formulates standards and methodologies for building AI applications across the university. In collaboration with the Principal Solutions Architect for the AI Platform, the Senior AI Engineer defines patterns and reference architectures so AI Innovation Lab applications are production-ready and aligned with Cornell’s secure AI infrastructure. The role applies expertise in Generative AI, API development, identity and authentication protocols, and cloud-native architectures. It integrates AI Innovation Lab services with Cornell enterprise systems using protocols and technologies such as OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, JWT, LDAP, and Microsoft identity services. It also develops or refines procedures to address complex system-capacity, operational, and distributed-AI performance challenges. As a senior leader in the AI Innovation Lab, the Senior AI Engineer provides technical direction to project teams that include project managers, business analysts, subject-matter experts, developers, and quality-assurance specialists. The role helps ensure solutions are well-designed and implemented and align with institutional strategy. All community members are expected to foster belonging and a healthy work environment through respectful, collaborative, inclusive communication and support for work/life integration. This is a 100% on-site position on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York. No visa sponsorship or relocation assistance is available. The listed salary range is $116,843–$142,809.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering, information technology, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
5–7 years of professional software engineering experience, with progressively advanced responsibility designing and developing production-grade applications and services.
Ability to design, build, test, deploy, and maintain complex AI- or ML-driven applications in production while ensuring security, reliability, and scalability.
Strong experience developing cloud-native applications and services, preferably on AWS or a comparable cloud platform.
Demonstrated expertise with Generative AI technologies, API development, and distributed systems engineering.
Experience integrating applications with enterprise identity and authentication systems using protocols such as OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, JWT, LDAP, and Microsoft identity services.
Ability to provide technical leadership, mentor developers and technical leads, establish engineering best practices, and guide solutions throughout the development lifecycle.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including experience addressing complex system-capacity, performance, and operational challenges.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
Ability to cultivate and develop inclusive working relationships with students, faculty, staff, and community members.
A resume is required for consideration; a cover letter outlining interest and alignment of experience and goals is strongly encouraged.
No visa sponsorship of any kind is available.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in computer science, data science, software engineering, information systems, or a related technical field.
Experience in higher education, research computing, or similarly complex enterprise environments, especially supporting faculty or research-driven AI use cases.
Hands-on experience delivering and operating production Generative AI or LLM-backed applications, including model orchestration, vector databases, and AI agent frameworks.
Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, or ECS, and building scalable distributed systems.
Familiarity with DevOps and MLOps practices, including CI/CD pipelines, observability, monitoring, logging, metrics, tracing, and reliability-focused engineering for customer-facing services.
Experience participating in incident response and on-call operations for production systems.
Experience designing or supporting secure, production-grade AI solutions hosted on AWS, Azure, or GCP.
Knowledge of model governance, responsible AI frameworks, AI risk management, data privacy, and compliance considerations.
Experience with enterprise integration patterns, secure API gateways, and identity-driven architectures.
Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, lead design reviews, define technical standards, and influence architectural decisions across multiple teams.
Experience contributing to or supporting grant-funded research initiatives, innovation projects, or cross-institution collaborations.

Responsibilities

Serve as technical lead for the AI Engineering team, providing expert guidance, architectural leadership, and hands-on development.
Design, develop, and maintain complex production-grade AI applications and systems that meet security, scalability, and reliability standards.
Mentor developers and technical leads and establish engineering best practices.
Guide AI projects and ensure they remain on the correct technical trajectory throughout the development lifecycle.
Direct and evaluate advanced AI solutions and lead the development and enhancement of enterprise AI systems.
Formulate standards and methodologies for building AI applications across the university.
Collaborate with the Principal Solutions Architect for the AI Platform to define patterns and reference architectures for production-ready AI Innovation Lab applications aligned with Cornell’s secure AI infrastructure.
Integrate AI Innovation Lab services with Cornell enterprise systems using identity and authentication protocols and services.
Develop or refine procedures for complex system-capacity, operational-constraint, and distributed-AI performance challenges.
Provide technical direction to project teams, helping ensure solutions are well-designed, well-implemented, and aligned with institutional strategy.
Contribute to an inclusive, respectful, collaborative work environment and support work/life integration.

Benefits

Comprehensive health care options
Generous retirement contributions
Access to wellness programs
Employee discounts with local and national retail brands
Health and personal leave
Three weeks of vacation
13 holidays, including an end-of-year winter break from December 25 through January 1
Two additional floating holidays
Tuition-free Extramural Study and Employee Degree Program
Tuition aid for external education
Cornell Children’s Tuition Assistance Program