About the Role
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The Senior AI Engineer plays a pivotal role in establishing trust in AI by ensuring its accuracy, explainability, and security. This position is responsible for leading the design, build, and deployment of production-grade AI and GenAI solutions using governed, high-quality data. The Senior AI Engineer owns the technical architecture and quality of AI solutions from inception to implementation, ensuring they are measurable, auditable, and compliant with UAE AI and data regulations.
In this role, you will collaborate with business analysts, data architects, data engineers, and the Data Governance Council. As the technical lead and mentor for junior AI engineers, you will take AI from prototype to production at scale, leveraging the Microsoft Azure AI ecosystem and establishing engineering and responsible-AI standards for the team.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the end-to-end design, development, and deployment of AI/ML and GenAI applications, including RAG assistants, document intelligence, and Arabic/English NLP use cases.
- Architect enterprise-scale retrieval-augmented generation solutions utilizing Azure OpenAI / Azure AI Foundry, Azure AI Search, vector indexing, and other advanced techniques focused on accuracy, latency, and cost efficiency.
- Define and implement responsible-AI controls adhering to the UAE Charter for the Development and Use of AI and Dubai's AI ethics principles, presenting these to the Data Governance Council.
- Design secure, scalable APIs and integration patterns that interface AI capabilities with enterprise applications while enforcing role-based access and data protection measures.
- Collaborate with data architects and data engineers to establish AI-ready data products and ensure data quality meets requisite standards.
- Develop evaluation frameworks including accuracy, relevance, latency, and cost KPIs, conducting automated regression tests and establishing release criteria.
- Manage CI/CD processes, model and prompt versioning, monitoring, and cost management for AI workloads in production.
- Ensure compliance with UAE PDPL, Dubai Data Law, and DESC ISR requirements regarding threat modeling and PII handling in AI workloads, in cooperation with security and data-protection teams.
- Act as the technical lead for the AI workstream, mentoring junior engineers, conducting design and code reviews, and supporting the estimation, planning, and delivery of quality solutions.
- Advise stakeholders on AI feasibility and risks, translating business needs into actionable technical plans.
- Produce documentation including model cards, solution architecture, and audit evidence for each AI component.
- Lead capability-building efforts in AI engineering practices and responsible-AI operations for client counterparts to ensure sustainable solutions post-handover.
Must Have
- AI certification.
- 8+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 4 years focusing on the design, construction, and deployment of AI/ML or GenAI solutions, including managing enterprise-level projects.
- Demonstrated experience as a technical lead, with a proven track record in guiding teams and delivering quality solutions.
- Expert-level proficiency in Python, with significant experience in frameworks such as LangChain, Semantic Kernel, PyTorch, scikit-learn, or Hugging Face, including building complex LLM workflows.
- Strong practical knowledge of Azure OpenAI / Azure AI Foundry, Azure AI Search, Azure Machine Learning, and vector databases, with expertise in hybrid retrieval and fine-tuning.
- Proficient in designing scalable APIs/services (REST/FastAPI), containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure as code.
- Deep understanding of MLOps/LLMOps, model evaluation, prompt engineering, and responsible-AI practices.
- Solid grasp of lakehouse architecture and governed data consumption via Microsoft Fabric and Purview.
- Familiarity with UAE AI and data regulations including the UAE AI Charter, UAE PDPL, and Dubai Data Law, with practical experience applying these standards.
- Excellent communication skills in English, including documentation and stakeholder management.
Good to Have
- Proficiency in Arabic and experience in Arabic NLP.
- Relevant Microsoft Azure AI or architecture certifications, such as Azure AI Engineer Associate or Azure Solutions Architect Expert.
- Experience working in government or regulated sectors.
