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.

[Remote] Lead AI/LLM Engineer (Contract)

Job Type