AI/ML Engineer

📍 Location: Remote (in Canada)

🏢 Type: (Temp/Contract) | Non-Salaried/Project-based/non-employment

⏰ Flexible

⚠️ ATTENTION: Applicants OUTSIDE of Canada, non-residents, and/or with work restrictions will NOT be considered.

⚠️ IF YOU HAVE ALREADY APPLIED, PLEASE DO NOT REAPPLY. We will review all applications.

⚠️ Canadian Citizens or Permanent Residents only!

⚠️ This is NOT a salaried/employment. It is a Temp-Contract: Project-Based / Fixed-Term / Jr candidates might be considered. Only apply if you are ok with this setup.

About the Role

We are seeking a proactive AI/ML Engineer to design and implement the intelligent systems that will power a custom platform being built from the ground up. You will work directly with the company owner and development team (other contractors) to ensure all AI-assisted workflows, self-improvements, recommendation engines, classification logic, and machine learning requirements are properly designed and implemented.

The platform will include AI-assisted user guidance, intelligent solutions, engines and mechanisms, systematic classification, recommendation systems, structured data extraction, and future machine-learning enhancements.

This is a project-based contractor engagement, focused on the design and delivery of a product and extends into a full product release based on the provisioned stages:

Stages: A) Design & Architecture, B) MVP development, C) Full Product Release

We expect the contractor to commit to the full process. (Payments will be based on full completion)

All source codes and IP will be owned by the company.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement intelligent systems, recommendation engines, algorithms, classification logic, and AI-assisted workflows.
• Develop AI-powered mechanisms that assist users in completing forms, answering free-text questions, navigating workflows, generating recommendations, and improving platform usability.
• Design, evaluate, and implement Natural Language Processing (NLP) solutions, semantic search, embeddings, vector-search, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and Large Language Model (LLM) integrations where appropriate.
• Develop structured and unstructured data processing pipelines, including extraction, classification, normalization, enrichment, scoring, and validation of user-provided information.
• Design and implement intelligent mechanisms.
• Develop confidence scoring, recommendation results, methodologies, explainability mechanisms, and AI-assisted decision support features.
• Collaborate with other contractors (Architects, Full-Stack Developers, UI/UX Designers), and other contributors to ensure AI capabilities are properly integrated throughout the platform.
• Recommend and evaluate the most appropriate AI/ML models, frameworks, tools, APIs, infrastructure, and deployment approaches based on business requirements.
• Design testing methodologies, evaluation criteria, benchmark datasets, validation procedures, and continuous improvement mechanisms for AI components.
• Participate in architecture, design, and technical planning discussions throughout all project stages.
• Document model assumptions, algorithms, workflows, evaluation methods, training approaches, limitations, and future enhancement opportunities.
• Collaborate directly with the company owner and project team to ensure milestones are achieved and requirements are fully implemented.

Desired Skills / Core

Applicants should possess experience, exposure, or demonstrable capability in several of the following areas:

Programming & Development

• Python
• SQL
• JavaScript / TypeScript
• API Development & Integration
• REST APIs
• Git / GitHub

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

• Machine Learning
• Artificial Intelligence
• Generative AI
• Large Language Models (LLMs)
• Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Recommendation Systems
• Classification Models
• Ranking Algorithms
• Matching Algorithms
• Semantic Search
• Similarity Search
• Entity Resolution
• Information Retrieval
• Feature Engineering
• Model Evaluation & Validation
• Prompt Engineering

Frameworks, Libraries & Tooling

• Scikit-Learn
• PyTorch
• TensorFlow
• Hugging Face
• LangChain
• LlamaIndex
• DSPy
• Pandas
• NumPy
• Jupyter Notebooks

Vector Search & Knowledge Systems

• Vector Databases
• Pinecone
• Weaviate
• Qdrant
• Chroma
• pgvector
• Knowledge Graphs
• Taxonomy Design
• Ontologies
• Metadata Management

Data & Analytics

• Data Modeling
• Data Engineering
• Data Processing Pipelines
• Structured Data Processing
• Unstructured Data Processing
• Data Quality & Validation
• Statistical Analysis

Cloud & Infrastructure

• AWS
• Azure
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Docker
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Production Deployment of AI Systems

Nice-to-Have / Preferred

• Fine-tuning machine learning or language models
• Experience building production AI products
• Experience building Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems
• Experience with recommendation, or marketplace-style platforms
• Experience with workflow automation and AI-assisted business processes
• Experience designing explainable AI systems
• Experience building structured models or classification-heavy applications
• MLOps exposure (MLflow, Airflow, Kubeflow, etc.)
• Experience deploying and monitoring AI systems in production environments
• Experience working on early-stage products, startups, MVPs, or greenfield platform development
• Strong architecture, scalability, and systems-thinking mindset
• Ability to contribute beyond AI/ML into broader product and technical discussions

Deliverables / Expected Output

• Ability to demonstrate recommendations on best practices, preferred architectures, models, frameworks, platforms, and tools, including rationale for each recommendation.
• AI architecture and design recommendations supporting long-term platform scalability and maintainability.
• Functional AI-assisted workflows integrated throughout the platform.
• Matching, recommendation, ranking, classification, and scoring mechanisms.
• Semantic search, embeddings, retrieval, and intelligent discovery capabilities where appropriate.
• Data extraction, classification, enrichment, normalization, and validation capabilities.
• Evaluation methodologies, benchmark datasets, testing procedures, and performance measurements.
• Technical documentation covering AI architecture, workflows, assumptions, algorithms, and future enhancement opportunities.
• Production-ready AI integrations suitable for progression from MVP to Full Product Release.

Education / Experience

• Recent graduates, early-career professionals, researchers, and/or experienced professionals are encouraged to apply.
• Candidates must be able to demonstrate through projects, portfolios, research, employment experience, open-source contributions, publications, competitions, or practical implementations that they possess the skills required to contribute to the project.
• Strong logical thinking, analytical capabilities, problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and ability to work independently as well as within a distributed team environment are required.
• Candidates should demonstrate experience, exposure, or capability in AI/ML, recommendation systems, semantic search, machine learning, NLP, classification systems, intelligent automation, or related fields.
• Junior candidates with exceptional technical capabilities, personal projects, research experience, competition results, open-source contributions, or demonstrated expertise are encouraged to apply.

Notes

• All code is original; the company owns IP.
• NDA and IP assignment agreements are required before sharing full project details.
• This is NOT a salary-based role or employment. It will be a temporary contract (project-based) with pre-assigned and mutually agreed-upon deliverables.
• The final shortlisted candidates will be required to complete a technical challenge, presentation, discussion, prototype exercise, or other evaluation activities prior to onboarding.
• The selected contractor will be expected to participate throughout all applicable project stages from architecture and design through MVP development and Full Product Release.
• This is NOT a salary-based role or employment. It will be a temporary contract (project-based) with pre-assigned and mutually agreed-upon deliverables. High salary expectations or high salary responses will be declined.
• The final shortlisted candidates will be required to propose a final flat-fee proposal.

Logistics

• Must be eligible to work in Canada (citizen or permanent resident will be prioritized)
• This role is remote and can be anywhere in Canada.

How to Apply

If you are a passionate sales professional with a background in security systems or technology and enjoy creating long-lasting customer relationships, we’d love to hear from you.

Please submit your resume through this link and send any additional details to info@potenco.ca.

Only qualified candidates who are eligible to work in Canada will be contacted.

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(*AI may have been partially used to build this JD)