Senior AI Engineer - Pretoria / Hybrid - Permanent - R1.1m PA

Introduction

We are seeking an experienced Senior AI Engineer with 6+ years of software engineering experience to play a pivotal role in our team.

This hybrid role combines expert-level software engineering with advanced AI development and system architecture. You will lead the design and implementation of autonomous AI agents, complex reasoning workflows, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems using LangChain and modern LLM tooling.

Duties & Responsibilities

Skills & Expertise Required

• IT Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

• 6+ years of general Software Engineering experience

• Demonstrated technical leadership in delivering complex systems

• Proven portfolio or track record of LLM-based applications or AI agents

• Expert proficiency in Python (mandatory)

• Deep, production-grade experience with LangChain

• Strong proficiency with LangGraph for multi-agent orchestration (highly desirable)

• Advanced experience with vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant, pgvector), including indexing and optimization

• Strong understanding of RAG vs fine-tuning trade-offs, context window management, and inference cost/latency optimization

• Experience working with GPTs, Claude, and/or local LLMs

Backend & Infrastructure

• Expert-level API development using FastAPI or Flask, including asynchronous patterns

• Advanced PostgreSQL expertise (schema design, query optimization); understanding of NoSQL consistency models

• Deep experience designing and deploying scalable systems on AWS (Bedrock, SageMaker, Lambda, ECS) or Azure

• Advanced Docker and container orchestration skills (Kubernetes or ECS)

• Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, AWS CDK, or CloudFormation)

Software Engineering & Architecture

• Expert knowledge of algorithms, data structures, and system design

• Strong experience with microservices, event-driven architectures, and SOLID principles

• Ability to guide frontend integration using React, Vue, or Angular

• Championing engineering standards, testing strategies (Pytest), code reviews, and system reliability

• Mastery of Git, CI/CD pipelines, and collaborative workflows

• Flexibility to take up different tasks in the team and be a team player

Reference Number for this position is GZ60986 which is a permanent Hybrid position based in Pretoria  offering a cost to company salary of R1.1m pa   negotiable on experience and ability. Contact Garth on garthz@e-merge.co.za or call him on 011 463 3633 to discuss this and other opportunities.

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