SENIOR AI PRODUCT ENGINEER (1043) - DEPARTMENT OF TECHNOLOGY
About The Position
Are you ready to make an impact in one of the most innovative cities? The Department of Technology (DT) is looking for passionate IT professionals to help shape the future of technology in San Francisco! As the centralized technology services provider for the City and County of San Francisco (CCSF), DT delivers critical infrastructure and services to over 33,000 employees—supporting public safety, municipal broadband, cybersecurity, cloud solutions, and more! With a $140M+ annual budget and a team of 300+ experts, DT is leading the charge in digital transformation. DT provides services through our core areas of IT Excellence: IT Project Management Office Enterprise Application Services Cloud Center of Excellence IT Operations and Support including the Service Desk and NOC City Infrastructure including the Network, Telcom and Data Centers Office of Cybersecurity including Cyber Defense, Identity Management and Disaster Recovery Public Safety Systems and Municipal Broadband Fiber SFGovTV Broadcasting Services IT Finance and Administration Services Emerging Technologies We are a small, mission-driven Emerging Technologies team leading responsible AI adoption across City government within DT. We work on: Testing and making AI tools available to other departments, Setting technical standards for safe and responsible AI use, and Building and experimenting with prototypes that demonstrate the potential of applied AI As our AI Product Engineer, your primary focus will be designing and building prototypes that showcase how AI can solve real challenges in government. You'll create end-user applications that surface retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and LLM features, making them usable, transparent, and trustworthy. Because we are a small team, you'll also need to flex into other areas: contributing to standards, supporting tool evaluations, and helping translate AI's potential to departments across the City. This role is hands-on, creative, and highly collaborative — ideal for someone who enjoys working at the intersection of technology, product, and impact.
Requirements
- An associate degree in computer science, computer engineering, information systems, or a closely related field from an accredited college or university OR its equivalent in terms of total course credits/units [i.e., at least sixty (60) semester or ninety (90) quarter credits/units with a minimum of twenty (20) semester or thirty (30) quarter credits/units in one of the fields above or a closely-related field].
- Three (3) years of experience analyzing, installing, configuring, enhancing, and/or maintaining the components of an enterprise network.
- Strong front-end engineering and UX background and modern design frameworks.
- Proven experience building interactive prototypes or applications (e.g., chat apps, dashboards, or AI-powered tools).
- Familiarity with AI/LLM APIs and RAG workflows.
- Comfort working across product and engineering boundaries — listening to users, iterating quickly, and experimenting with design ideas.
- Adaptability and willingness to wear many hats in a small, high-impact team.
Nice To Haves
- Some backend experience.
- Exposure to AI governance, safety, or public sector requirements (privacy, accessibility, compliance).
- Experience contributing to standards, documentation, or technical adoption guides.
- Background in rapid prototyping environments (startups, labs, hackathons).
Responsibilities
- Prototype and ship applied AI tools (chat interfaces, knowledge assistants, workflow integrations) that demonstrate new use cases for City departments.
- Design and implement front-end applications to surface RAG/LLM outputs with transparency and usability
- Collaborate with the team to connect prototypes to retrieval pipelines, APIs, and model orchestration.
- Experiment rapidly: run pilots, gather feedback from staff, and iterate on features to improve adoption.
- Flex into other areas of the team's mandate as needed — contributing to tool evaluations, standards-setting, and AI adoption guidance.
- Help make technical choices that balance innovation, safety, and responsible use in a public sector context.
Benefits
- Competitive pay, benefits, and retirement options
- Career growth opportunities through training, internal mobility, and subsidized education
- Diverse work environment in a diverse city
- We offer employees the ability to work from home one day a week while spending the other four days in our San Francisco office, promoting both collaboration and work-life balance
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
Associate degree
Number of Employees
5,001-10,000 employees
