AI Engineer

This is a remote job but you must live in Tennessee or Texas.

About Optu Consulting

Optu Consulting is an application development firm based in Nashville, TN. Celebrating over 10 years in business, we partner with diverse clients across the United States. Our team delivers custom software, data solutions, and modern AI-driven applications that solve complex business challenges.

We offer a flexible work-from-home environment, minimal travel (<10%), and access to a benefits package including group health, dental, and vision insurance, life insurance, long-term disability coverage, and a 3% SIMPLE IRA match.

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced AI Engineer to design, build, and deploy intelligent systems leveraging modern AI/ML technologies. This role will focus on developing AI-powered applications using large language models (LLMs), agent frameworks, orchestration tools, and advanced data pipelines.

The ideal candidate is hands-on, forward-thinking, and comfortable building AI agents and integrating them into real-world business applications.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy AI-powered agents and workflows using large language models and agent-based architectures
• Build AI agents that can reason through multi-step tasks, use tools, retrieve relevant context, and take action within defined workflows
• Integrate LLMs into internal and client-facing applications through APIs, backend services, and orchestration layers
• Develop prompt strategies, system instructions, structured output patterns, and tool-calling workflows for reliable AI behavior
• Architect and maintain Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines to connect LLMs with business knowledge and internal data sources
• Build integrations between AI systems and external tools such as databases, CRMs, document repositories, search platforms, and line-of-business systems
• Work with document intelligence pipelines including OCR, chunking, embeddings, semantic search, and knowledge extraction
• Evaluate and improve LLM and agent output for quality, consistency, latency, and cost efficiency
• Integrate with multiple AI providers such as OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and open-source or self-hosted models
• Deploy and support local or private models when business or client requirements call for non-cloud solutions
• Collaborate with clients and internal teams to translate business requirements into practical AI and agent solutions
• Participate in the full software lifecycle including design, development, testing, deployment, monitoring, and support
• Assist in solution architecture and pre-sales discussions when needed

Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of software development experience, with at least 2 years focused on AI/ML, LLM-based systems, or generative AI applications
• Strong experience building and integrating applications with large language models in production environments
• Proficiency in Python or C#/.NET for building AI services, APIs, and backend systems
• Hands-on experience designing and implementing AI agents, including multi-step workflows, tool calling, context handling, and orchestration
• Experience working with agent development frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, CrewAI, AutoGen, or similar platforms
• Strong understanding of prompt engineering, system prompts, structured outputs, function calling, and LLM interaction patterns
• Hands-on experience designing and maintaining RAG pipelines for grounded LLM responses
• Experience with vector databases and retrieval systems such as Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, or Azure Cognitive Search
• Experience with embeddings, semantic search, reranking, and retrieval strategies for unstructured data
• Experience integrating LLMs and agents with business systems, APIs, databases, document stores, and external tools
• Experience working with document processing workflows including OCR, chunking, metadata extraction, and knowledge retrieval
• Ability to evaluate and improve LLM and agent performance for quality, consistency, latency, and cost
• Familiarity with testing, debugging, and monitoring AI applications in production
• Experience using Git and standard software development practices
• Strong problem-solving, analytical, and communication skills
• Ability to work effectively with clients and internal teams in a distributed environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience deploying production-grade AI agents for enterprise or client-facing use cases
• Experience with LLM evaluation, prompt testing, guardrails, and agent reliability practices
• Experience integrating multiple model providers such as OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and open-source models
• Experience with cloud platforms, especially Azure; AWS or GCP also acceptable
• Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, and scalable deployment patterns for AI workloads
• Experience building data pipelines and ETL processes that support AI and retrieval systems
• Familiarity with frontend frameworks for integrating AI experiences into user-facing applications
• Exposure to security, compliance, governance, and responsible AI practices
• Consulting or client-facing experience translating business requirements into AI agent and LLM-based solutions

Benefits

• 401(k) with 3% matching
• Access to health, dental, and vision insurance
• Life insurance and long-term disability
• Paid time off
• Fully remote work environment (Tennessee residency required)
• Minimal travel (<10%)

Schedule

Monday to Friday

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field preferred

Why Join Optu?

• Work on cutting-edge AI solutions across industries
• High-growth company with strong momentum
• Opportunity to shape AI strategy and offerings
• Flexible remote culture with meaningful client impact

If you’re passionate about building real-world AI solutions and want to work on innovative projects with a growing team, we’d love to hear from you.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $120,000.00 - $150,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

Education:

• Bachelor's (Preferred)

Experience:

• AI/ML or LLM: 2 years (Preferred)
• AI Agents: 2 years (Required)
• Software Development: 2 years (Required)
• Database: 2 years (Required)

Location:

• Tennessee (Required)

Work Location: Remote