NORC at the University of Chicago seeks a Mid-Level AI Engineer to build AI-powered tools (LLMs, chat interfaces, knowledge bases, AI assistants) to improve staff productivity and enable business workflows.
Requirements
- Experience building AI/ML/NLP/LLM systems, preferably with exposure to production deployment
- Proficiency in Python (and/or other relevant languages); experience with ML/AI frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow, HuggingFace)
- Experience with LLM integrations, prompt engineering, vector search / retrieval augmented generation
- Familiarity with cloud environments / deployment (AWS, Azure, GCP or equivalent), API design, software engineering best practices
- Awareness or experience with AI safety / bias / ethics / privacy etc.
- Technical or research publications relevant to LLM / NLP / AI assistants (if applicable).
- Experience with agent-based AI or multi-agent systems.
Responsibilities
- Build, fine-tune, or integrate with large language models / NLP pipelines; develop retrieval augmented systems, vector DBs, embeddings, etc.
- Develop the software interfaces / front-end / back-end integration required for chat interfaces, AI assistants, knowledge base search/QA systems.
- Ensure models are evaluated and monitored (accuracy, drift, fairness, performance), with feedback loops to improve.
- Maintain documentation, write tests, deploy and maintain AI systems; handle error/edge cases, logging, and reliability.
- Participate in design / architecture discussions: decisions about prompt engineering, LLM usage vs fine-tuning, guardrails, cost trade-offs.
- Collaborate with domain experts and staff stakeholders to define, scope, and refine AI use-cases (chat assistants, knowledge bases, process bots, etc.).
- Mentor junior developers (Level 1) and help disseminate best practices in prompt / safety / deployment.
Other
- Hybrid arrangement (i.e., part remote, part in-office).
- Good communication skills: able to translate domain / business requirements into technical solutions; work with other teams
- Qualified applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S. We regret that we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position.
- Prior work in knowledge bases or building AI assistants / chatbots in business contexts.
- Previous NORC experience valued.
