Sr. Engineer, AI Applications

Ayar Labs • San Jose, CA

6d • $150,000 - $192,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Ayar Labs is seeking an AI Application Engineer who will act as a builder, transforming AI into practical tools for Ayar Labs employees. This role involves designing, building, and deploying tools that empower engineering, operations, and business teams, even those without specialized software or AI expertise. The ideal candidate is a self-motivated individual contributor with hands-on experience, capable of taking vague requests and developing reliable, working tools. This position requires close collaboration with stakeholders across the business and the IT department to create impactful AI-powered tools. Beyond development, the role includes shaping the standards, processes, and infrastructure for the company's new AI function, utilizing modern DevOps tooling and LLM/AI APIs to deliver production-ready solutions.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering, mathematics, physics, or another STEM or engineering field.
• 2+ years in software engineering, DevOps, or platform engineering.
• Hands-on experience working with model APIs (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, open weight models) to build AI-powered tools like chat interfaces, document processing, workflow automation, or code generation.
• Experience building shareable AI skills and MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers.
• Sound judgment regarding the use of existing model features versus custom development.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate non-technical requests into functional tools.
• A history of building internal tools or applications used by others.
• Comfort operating independently and a motivation to help establish new processes.
• Working proficiency in Python and at least one of JavaScript/TypeScript, Go, or a similar modern language.
• Familiarity with DevOps fundamentals including version control, CI/CD, containerization and orchestration, infrastructure-as-code, and monitoring.

Nice To Haves

• Thoughtfulness regarding data handling, access control, and IP protection when implementing AI tools.
• A master's or other postgraduate degree.
• Experience testing and evaluating AI features and implementing reliability and safety guardrails.
• Prior experience in a hardware, semiconductor, or deep-tech company, or in an environment with highly technical, non-software users.
• Cloud platform experience (AWS, Azure, or GCP).

Responsibilities

• Serve as a primary builder for AI-powered internal tools, transforming company-wide requests into scoped, working solutions.
• Build applications, dashboards, services, and interfaces that provide AI capabilities directly to users, enabling them to perform their work without needing deep AI knowledge.
• Integrate APIs from models such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, or open-weight models into company workflows and data sources to ensure AI performs useful tasks.
• Build and maintain the necessary pipelines, containerized deployments, infrastructure automation, and monitoring systems for AI tools.
• Troubleshoot issues directly with users and drive adoption through user-friendly documentation and training.
• Evaluate new AI tools, platforms, and vendors to identify opportunities that align with company needs.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior