[Remote] Lead AI/LLM Engineer (Contract)

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. UP.Labs is partnering with a global energy industry leader to create an AI-driven intelligence platform. The Lead LLM / AI Engineer will architect and deploy machine learning infrastructure for a new vertical SaaS product, collaborating with various teams to transform data into intelligence and prototypes into scalable systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement the venture’s AI and LLM architecture, including model selection, fine-tuning, RAG pipelines, and production integration.
• Develop and iterate on applied AI systems—from prototype agents and natural-language interfaces to predictive and optimization models in a small language model.
• Build retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines leveraging structured and unstructured industry data (documents, telemetry, sensor data, etc.).
• Evaluate and integrate LLM APIs and open-source frameworks (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Hugging Face) for use-case fit, cost, and performance.
• Collaborate with product and design teams to translate complex technical possibilities into intuitive product experiences and user workflows.
• Establish best practices for model evaluation, prompt engineering, and monitoring to ensure reliability, explainability, and business alignment.
• Lead technical decisions and mentor junior engineers, helping to establish the AI engineering culture and development standards for the new venture.
• Prototype rapidly, measure impact, and scale what works—balancing innovation with pragmatic delivery.

Skills

• 6+ years of professional experience in applied machine learning, NLP, or AI engineering—ideally with exposure to enterprise or B2B SaaS environments.
• Deep understanding of LLM architectures, fine-tuning, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
• Experience with vector databases, embeddings, and knowledge-graph construction.
• Proficiency in Python and modern AI/ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, LangChain, LlamaIndex, etc.).
• Strong engineering fundamentals—experience with cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS, or Azure), CI/CD, and scalable microservices.
• Comfort working in ambiguous, 0→1 environments, where you help shape both the product and the technical roadmap.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams—including product managers, designers, and domain experts.

Company Overview

• UP.Labs is a first-of-its-kind venture lab unlocking the future of transportation and mobility. It was founded in undefined, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA, US, with a workforce of 11-50 employees. Its website is https://up.partners/labs.