Lead AI Engineer (Hands-On) – NYC (4 Days On-Site)
Large, Mission-Driven Non-Profit
We’re partnering with a well-funded, high-impact non-profit in New York City that is investing heavily in modern engineering and AI capabilities. They’re looking for a Lead AI Engineer who is still very much hands-on, someone who writes real code, ships production systems, and can help shape the next generation of their platform.
This is not a “PowerPoint AI” role. They want someone who has actually built things.
What You’ll Do
- Design and build production-grade AI-powered systems that drive real-world impact
- Architect and implement RAG pipelines, LLM integrations, and agent-based workflows
- Lead backend development across microservices, APIs, and data systems
- Help define the AI and data platform strategy while staying close to the code
- Partner with product, data, and business stakeholders to turn ideas into working solutions
- Set engineering standards around testing, scalability, and maintainability
What They’re Looking For
- ~10+ years of experience as a hands-on software engineer (backend-heavy)
- Strong coding skills (Python preferred) with solid software engineering fundamentals
- Experience building and shipping AI integrations in production
- RAG pipelines, LLM-based systems, MCP-style architectures, or similar
- Deep understanding of microservices, distributed systems, and databases
- Someone who thinks in systems, evaluates tradeoffs, and can propose multiple design paths
- Collaborative, low-ego, team-first mindset
Why This Role
- Real impact, not vanity AI projects
- Strong engineering culture, they care about clean systems and good code
- Opportunity to own and shape AI direction at an organization doing meaningful work
- Leadership without losing your hands-on edge
