Who we are:
At Focused, we move quickly to deliver quality software that achieves client outcomes and meets their customer's needs. We strategically partner with our clients to leverage our expertise in design and software, while our clients bring their own domain expertise. We work with a variety of clients from different industries, collaborating as we get new products to market, modernizing legacy systems, or helping teams learn the skills they need to be successful.
Our values:
- Listen first • We are experts in product practices but lifelong learners in the domain of our customers. We research, collaborate, and understand.
- Learn why • We ask questions and talk to users to understand problem spaces, objectives, and goals, which allows us to deeply invest and drive towards the outcomes of our clients.
- Love your craft • We love diving into a variety of domains and solving problems. We take pride in delivering value, in communicating progress, and guiding our clients to success.
We're looking for a Platform Engineer to help build an enterprise AI platform for a global enterprise client. You'll work alongside a Senior Platform Engineer on the Kubernetes and cloud foundation, and you'll also get hands-on with the AI side: wiring up model access, deploying agents, and helping application teams get their LLM workloads into production. If you like infrastructure but want to build with AI too, this role is for you.
Key Responsibilities:
Platform & Infrastructure
- Build and operate Kubernetes clusters on Azure AKS and GCP GKE
- Write and maintain Terraform modules for cloud resources and environments
- Build CI/CD and GitOps pipelines for platform and application deployments
- Monitor, troubleshoot, and improve the reliability of AI/ML platform services
AI Platform Engineering & Operations
- Deploy and operate supporting services for LLM applications: model gateways, vector databases, tracing, and evaluation
- Support GPU workloads, including node pools, scheduling, and cost monitoring
- Write runbooks and automate day-two operations
AI Engineering
- Build reference agents and LLM application templates that client teams can start from
- Help application teams integrate with the platform and debug their workloads
- Prototype with agent frameworks and LLM APIs to test what the platform needs to support
Required Qualifications:
- 5+ years in platform, infrastructure, DevOps, or SRE roles
- Hands-on production experience with Kubernetes
- Experience with Azure and/or GCP
- Experience with Terraform or similar IaC tools
- Experience supporting AI/ML platforms or ML workloads in production
- Proficiency in Python plus solid scripting skills
Preferred Qualifications (Exceptional Candidates):
- Experience building LLM applications or agents (LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, or similar)
- Experience with Azure OpenAI or Vertex AI
- Familiarity with GPU infrastructure and model serving
- Consulting or client-facing experience
What Sets Exceptional Candidates Apart:
- You've shipped an LLM feature or agent to real users, not just a demo
- You enjoy pairing and learn quickly from senior engineers
- You build documentation systems that auto-update for the next person (and coding agent)
What to know before you apply:
- This role will require being in the Chicago office 3 days per week and up to 20% travel within the United States.
- Focused is unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of the employment Visa process at this time.
- The Chicago base salary range for this role is $145,000 - $175,000.
Skills Required
- 5+ years of experience in platform, infrastructure, DevOps, or SRE roles
- Hands-on production experience with Kubernetes
- Experience with Azure and/or GCP
- Experience with Terraform or similar infrastructure-as-code tools
- Experience supporting AI/ML platforms or ML workloads in production
- Proficiency in Python and solid scripting skills
- Experience building LLM applications or agents using LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, or similar
- Experience with Azure OpenAI or Vertex AI
- Familiarity with GPU infrastructure and model serving
- Consulting or client-facing experience
Focused Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Focused and has not been reviewed or approved by Focused.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid leave is offered for both birth and non-birth parents, with a structured transition period to ease the return to work. Adoption assistance and company-sponsored family events reinforce a family-friendly environment.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) plan includes employer matching with no vesting period, supporting long-term savings. The presence of a clear match structure signals a stable retirement benefit.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Generous PTO combines vacation, sick days, and floating holidays to support work-life balance. Company materials emphasize using time off and taking breaks to maintain wellbeing.
Focused Insights
What We Do
Focused is a software services company that builds agentic AI and custom software. Our expert engineers and designers build custom agents that integrate seamlessly with the systems you already run. What sets Focused apart is our hands-on, collaborative approach. We don’t just build and deliver software, we partner with your teams to ensure that we are building the right solution to meet both present and future demands.
Why Work With Us
We love to write code, and if you do too, you will love Focused. Everything we do from our sustainable pace to minimal meetings is designed to optimize your time writing software! Focused is truly a place to grow or hone your software craft - you could see 2-3 clients in a year and each one presents things to learn.
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