AI Engineer (Contract)

About the role: 10a Labs is seeking an AI Engineer for a four-month contract (potential to extend) to partner closely with engineers and internal teams to design and implement cutting-edge AI solutions. You’ll build practical systems that leverage modern language models that will be applied to real-world problems.

This role blends applied AI expertise, strong engineering fundamentals, and creative problem-solving. You’ll prototype quickly, iterate rapidly, and translate emerging model capabilities into reliable, production-ready systems.

In this role, you will: 

• Design and implement AI-driven systems using AI APIs in creative and smart ways.
• Build prototypes and production workflows that leverage language models for tasks such as classification, evaluation, and synthetic data generation.
• Integrate AI APIs, vector stores, and supporting infrastructure to enable scalable applications.
• Experiment with and evaluate both hosted and open-source models where appropriate.
• Partner with product managers, analysts, and technical writers to translate complex systems into well-defined requirements and clear external materials.
• Provide technical feedback to product and engineering teams to improve system quality and performance.

We’re looking for someone who: 

• Has experience in AI engineering, software engineering, or applied ML roles.
• Is highly comfortable using modern coding copilots and model-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Codex, or similar).
• Has hands-on experience working with model provider APIs.
• Is scrappy, creative, and able to iterate quickly in ambiguous problem spaces.
• Operates with autonomy and strong problem-solving skills, managing multiple projects simultaneously.
• Is collaborative, detail-oriented, and thrives in fast-moving, high-impact environments.
• Has experience with end-to-end ownership of complex technical challenges.

Requirements:

• At least 1+ year experience in AI engineering or research, or 3-5 years of experience in software engineering or similar roles.
• Strong applied AI experience, including working knowledge of AI systems and AI APIs or open-source models.
• Experience with vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, Milvus) and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures.