Join a team building enterprise-scale autonomous AI systems that bring next-generation GenAI and agentic capabilities into production. This contract-to-hire AI Engineer role offers the chance to design cloud-native frameworks, runtime components, and intelligent automation solutions that help power advanced AI experiences in a complex enterprise environment.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop autonomous AI agent systems that can reason, plan, act, and collaborate in production environments.
• Build scalable runtime infrastructure and foundational components that support enterprise AI and GenAI solutions.
• Partner with researchers, platform engineers, architects, and product leaders to move agentic AI ideas from concept to deployment.
• Create secure, cloud-native frameworks that support intelligent automation across distributed systems.
• Contribute to governance, safety, observability, and compliance for AI-powered applications.
• Help shape core agent capabilities such as memory handling, context management, identity, and tooling integration.
• Support the development of APIs, backend services, and production-ready infrastructure for AI workflows.

Skills

• Experience designing, building, and deploying autonomous AI agents or agent-based architectures.
• Strong Python skills, along with familiarity with backend engineering and AI infrastructure.
• Hands-on knowledge of LLM integration, prompt engineering, and agent runtime systems.
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Background in Kubernetes, Docker, containerization, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Understanding of distributed systems, API design, and scalable production environments.
• Ability to communicate clearly, document work effectively, and collaborate across technical teams.
• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 2+ years of experience in software architecture, backend development, or AI infrastructure.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with MCP servers, vector databases, RAG systems, graph-based memory, or NLP frameworks.
• Familiarity with Java, Go, or C++.
• Knowledge of AI governance, safety, and compliance practices.
• Experience extending open-source tools for enterprise use cases.
• Ability to mentor others and contribute to cross-functional technical planning.
• Interest in building safe, human-centered autonomous systems.

Horizontal is committed to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace where every person is respected and valued. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and encourage applicants who are excited to contribute their unique perspective and experience.