AI Engineer, Lead

AI Engineer, Lead, ES Consulting
About ES Consulting
ES Consulting is an applied AI consulting firm that partners with enterprise organizations to modernize critical operations and deliver measurable business outcomes with AI. We design, build, and deploy production AI systems inside our clients' environments, with a focus on reliability, accountability, and return on investment.
What We Are Looking For
Lead AI Engineers at ES Consulting are hands-on technical leaders who own the architecture, execution, and delivery of critical production AI systems for enterprise clients. They make technical decisions, lead project delivery, coach engineers, and partner closely with client stakeholders and ES Consulting engagement leads to ensure every system delivers real business value.
This role is for engineers who want ownership over production outcomes: shaping system architecture, leading technical execution, working directly with clients, and improving AI systems under real-world constraints.
Key Responsibilities
Lead and mentor a team of AI Engineers, owning technical direction, code quality, execution standards, and individual growth.
Design and implement AI systems that combine models, agents, retrieval, evaluation, and execution into coherent, production-ready systems aligned with client business outcomes.
Work directly with client stakeholders, often in high-visibility settings, and communicate clearly about system behavior, tradeoffs, limitations, and paths to improvement.
Operate and improve live AI systems by measuring behavior, identifying failure modes, debugging issues, and iterating rapidly on quality, reliability, and usefulness.
Integrate AI systems into client data platforms, APIs, and existing applications, making pragmatic design decisions that balance speed, robustness, maintainability, and long-term operability.
Take accountability for outcomes in production and adapt systems as requirements evolve.
Who You Are
Experience. 8+ years of engineering experience, including experience as a tech lead or engineering lead on client-facing or production AI projects.
Ownership of outcomes. You take responsibility for whether an AI system delivers its intended value in production. You are comfortable making independent technical decisions across system design, evaluation, integration, and iteration.
Technical leadership in teams. Management experience is not required, but you have led engineers through technical decision-making, execution, mentorship, and delivery. Growth in this role includes taking on broader technical and leadership scope over time.
Strong solutions architecture fundamentals. You have experience with cloud systems, system integrations, API design, and data engineering. You understand how an AI system fits into a broader enterprise ecosystem and can operate as a peer to client architecture and engineering teams.
AI-native working style. You use AI tools daily to write and debug code, explore designs, analyze data, and automate repetitive work. You follow new model capabilities and techniques and incorporate them into how you build.
Willingness to travel. Travel is typically 10 to 30 percent, depending on the project, client needs, and your role on the engagement.
ES Consulting is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.

Work arrangement
Yes