Position Summary
The Senior AI Engineer, Agentic Systems will design, build, deploy, and operate production-grade agentic AI systems that support enterprise-scale use cases. The role emphasizes shipped production experience, system reliability, orchestration, monitoring, debugging, and the ability to expose enterprise capabilities as tools or skills for LLM-powered agents.
Core Responsibilities
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Build and operate production agentic AI systems, including deployed, monitored, and debugged agents running at scale.
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Own agentic use cases end-to-end, partnering directly with business stakeholders from problem definition through delivery and operational support.
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Design orchestration patterns for autonomous or semi-autonomous agents using modern agent frameworks and production orchestration layers.
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Develop enterprise capabilities as tools or skills for LLMs, enabling agents to interact with business systems and workflows in a controlled, scalable way.
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Engineer reliable backend services for agentic workloads, with emphasis on Python-based development and integration with Java service layers where required.
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Implement and support production infrastructure for AI workloads, including environments where Kubernetes and model-serving components such as vLLM may be part of the stack.
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Evaluate and communicate system failure modes, including the ability to walk through shipped systems, operational issues, debugging approaches, and mitigation strategies.
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Collaborate with vendor, engineering, and business teams to deliver solutions with limited ramp-up time, consistent with expectations for senior contract engineering talent.
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Maintain a production-first engineering standard, ensuring the role does not over-index on framework familiarity at the expense of real deployment experience.
Required Qualifications
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7+ years of software engineering experience, with demonstrated experience building and shipping production systems.
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Hands-on production experience with agentic AI or GenAI applications, including deployment, monitoring, debugging, and operating agents at scale.
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Strong Python engineering skills, with the ability to work effectively in production AI and agentic system environments.
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Java experience or willingness to work daily within a Java service layer, especially where enterprise systems require integration with existing backend services.
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Experience with agent frameworks and orchestration technologies, including LangChain and/or LangGraph.
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Familiarity with production infrastructure for AI systems, including Kubernetes-based deployment environments.
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Ability to explain shipped system architecture and failure modes, including what was deployed, how it was monitored, where it failed, and how issues were resolved.
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Comfort working in a senior contract delivery model where the expectation is faster delivery and limited ramp-up investment.
Preferred Qualifications
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Experience with LangGraph as a production orchestration layer.
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Experience with vLLM or comparable model-serving infrastructure.
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Experience in regulated-industry or financial-services technology environments, especially where enterprise scale and production-path stakes are important.
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Experience working with business stakeholders to deliver end-to-end AI use cases, not only platform or prototype work.
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Ability to operate in an onsite or hybrid delivery model, especially in a market such as NYC where the attachment notes a deeper finance-AI contractor pool.
Engagement Expectations
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Position the role as a senior contract role with a production-delivery bar, not as an entry-level GenAI experimentation role.
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A 12-month engagement is reasonable for senior contractors, though onsite expectations may narrow the candidate pool.
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If submissions are limited, relax requirements in this order: Java first, onsite days second, and do not relax the production-experience bar.
Suggested Must-Have Screening Criteria
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Can clearly describe at least one agentic AI system they personally helped ship to production.
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Can explain failure modes, monitoring, debugging, and operational lessons learned from a shipped system.
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Has strong Python capability and either strong Java experience or willingness to work daily with a Java service layer.
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Has practical experience with LangChain, LangGraph, Kubernetes, or comparable production AI infrastructure.
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Demonstrates ability to own use cases end-to-end with business stakeholders.
Recommended Positioning Language for the Job Description
We are seeking a Senior AI Engineer, Agentic Systems to design, build, and operate production-grade agentic AI solutions for enterprise-scale use cases. This role requires hands-on experience shipping AI systems into production, operating them reliably, debugging real-world failure modes, and exposing enterprise capabilities as tools or skills for LLM-powered agents. The ideal candidate combines strong Python engineering, practical agent orchestration experience, and the ability to partner with business stakeholders to own use cases from concept through production delivery.
Compensation, Benefits and Duration
Minimum Compensation: USD 44,000
Maximum Compensation: USD 154,000
Compensation is based on actual experience and qualifications of the candidate. The above is a reasonable and a good faith estimate for the role.
Medical, vision, and dental benefits, 401k retirement plan, variable pay/incentives, paid time off, and paid holidays are available for full time employees.
This position is available for independent contractors
No applications will be considered if received more than 120 days after the date of this post
Skills Required
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
- Strong programming experience in Python
- Strong programming experience in Java
- Proven experience in building intelligent agents (conversational AI, copilots, autonomous workflows)
- Solid understanding of software engineering principles, object-oriented programming, and system design
- Experience developing, testing, and integrating AI/ML models into enterprise applications
- Experience developing and consuming RESTful APIs and microservices
- Familiarity with databases, including SQL and NoSQL technologies
- Experience working with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills
- Experience with Generative AI, LLMs, and agentic AI frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI
- Knowledge of prompt engineering, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and vector databases
- Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and Agile development methodologies
What We Do
Photon.com has emerged as one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing Digital Agencies. We work with 40% of the Fortune 100 on their Digital initiatives and are known for our ability to integrate Strategy Consulting, Creative Design, and Technology at scale. Please visit www.photon.com to learn more about us, how we work, and our customer case studies. Digital Transformation Starts Here.

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