Applied AI Engineer | Production AI & LLM Systems | $170K-$230K Equity

Full-time Description Applied AI Engineer | Production AI & LLM Systems | $170K-$230K + Equity Full-Time | Hybrid - Approximately 3 Days/Week In Office | New York, NY Dana Gudermuth Senior Recruiter | Heartline Staffing Call or Text: (314) 526-0706 Email: Dana@heartlinestaffing.com Prefer a confidential conversation instead of applying? Call or text Dana directly at (314) 526-0706. Heartline Staffing is recruiting an Applied AI Engineer for a high-ownership opportunity with a growing technology company in New York City. This is an early engineering role focused on building production AI systems that directly impact marketplace growth, operational efficiency, revenue and overall marketplace quality. The Applied AI Engineer will work directly with the founder/CEO and own AI initiatives from idea and architecture through deployment, evaluation and continuous iteration. This is a hands-on engineering position for someone who has already shipped AI and LLM functionality into production and wants significant influence over both technical decisions and what gets built. POSITION OVERVIEW • Own AI projects end-to-end, from defining the business problem and selecting the appropriate model through deployment, evaluation and iteration • Build production AI systems supporting candidate-to-job matching and marketplace optimization • Develop intelligent automation to replace or improve manual marketplace workflows • Build AI-powered classification, extraction, content generation and search capabilities • Develop evaluation and experimentation systems focused on accuracy, consistency and measurable results • Build production AI functionality informed by real-world user feedback • Develop tooling and infrastructure that accelerate AI development and iteration • Connect technical decisions and AI capabilities to measurable business outcomes AI / ML ENGINEERING - APPROXIMATELY 60% • Model selection • Prompt engineering • Fine-tuning • LLM evaluation • Embeddings • Vector databases • AI experimentation • Data pipelines PRODUCT ENGINEERING - APPROXIMATELY 40% • APIs • Backend services • Product integrations • UI integration • AI-powered product features • Production infrastructure COMPENSATION • $170,000-$230,000 base salary • Equity • Relocation support available for strong candidates WORK ARRANGEMENT • Full-time, permanent position • New York City • In-person collaboration strongly preferred • Approximately 3 days per week in the office • Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship Requirements Requirements • 4+ years of engineering experience REQUIRED • Meaningful experience shipping AI/LLM features into production REQUIRED • Experience owning AI projects end-to-end REQUIRED • Strong understanding of model selection, data pipelines, deployment and iteration REQUIRED • Experience with LLM APIs, embeddings, vector databases and fine-tuning REQUIRED • Strong foundation in full-stack web development REQUIRED • Ability to connect technical decisions to measurable business outcomes REQUIRED • Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship REQUIRED Preferred • Early-stage or high-growth startup experience Preferred • Founding-team engineering experience Preferred • Recruiting or talent industry experience Preferred • Experience building marketplace, matching, search or recommendation systems Preferred Not ready to formally apply? That's completely fine. Many AI engineering professionals prefer a confidential conversation first. Call or text Dana directly at (314) 526-0706. Email: Dana@heartlinestaffing.com Salary Description $170K-$230K + Equity