Senior Engineer, AI/NLP Engineering

About the Role & Team

IDC's Data Engineering team is seeking a Senior Engineer, AI/NLP Engineering to lead hands-on delivery of AI-powered data engineering workflows and manage a small team of engineers. This role combines direct people management with deep, current experience operating in governed, agentic development environments and building large-scale natural language processing (NLP) pipelines that make unstructured content AI-ready.You will manage day-to-day delivery, review and direct the work of junior team members, and act as the technical point of contact with specialist stakeholders assessing feasibility, challenging proposals, and negotiating realistic delivery expectations and trade-offs.This is a hands-on management role for someone who can ramp quickly on unfamiliar codebases, exercises sound technical judgment, and is comfortable pushing back rather than overpromising.

What You’ll Do

• Manage and direct the day-to-day work of a small team of data engineers, reviewing output alongside personal delivery responsibilities.
• Operate extensively within Claude Code and other governed, AI-powered development workflows, applying guardrails such as safe-zone scoping and critically reviewing agent-generated plans.
• Build and operate natural language processing (NLP) pipelines at scale that ingest, parse, chunk, embed, and extract metadata/entities from millions of documents, and extract insights via Large Language Models (LLMs) or NLP models.
• Ramp quickly on unfamiliar codebases using documentation and skills files as the primary source of context.
• Apply strong applied Python, SQL, and Snowflake fundamentals to assess solution feasibility and challenge technical proposals.
• Manage stakeholder relationships and negotiations, securing specialist sign-off and communicating trade-offs or interim delivery options.
• Exercise sound technical judgment, escalating and pushing back on unrealistic scope or timelines rather than overpromising.

What You Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, or a related quantitative field; or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience in data science, NLP, or AI/ML engineering, including at least 2 years hands-on building and shipping agentic AI or LLM applications in production, with pipelines that ingest millions of documents and prepare them to be AI-ready (parsing, chunking, embedding, metadata/entity extraction).
• Hands-on Claude Code experience is a core requirement: you have worked in a governed AI-powered workflow, understand guardrails such as safe-zone scoping, and can critically review agent-generated plans. Evidence of real usage is required.
• Experience with agent orchestration frameworks (e.g., Claude Agent SDK) and tool-calling / MCP-based integration patterns.
• Strong applied Python, SQL, and Snowflake fundamentals, enough to assess solution feasibility and challenge technical proposals.
• People management experience: comfortable directing and reviewing the work of junior team members alongside your own responsibilities.
• Travel: minimal (up to 10%).
• Work model: Hybrid (Czech Republic).

Why This Role Stands Out At IDC, your work helps shape how the world understands technology and where it goes next. You collaborate with curious, high-caliber colleagues who value rigor, integrity, and shared success. As the premier global provider of trusted technology intelligence, IDC equips business and technology leaders with the evidence they need to make confident decisions. Our insights inform strategy, investment, and innovation across industries and regions.

Recognized by IIAR as Analyst Firm of the Year for five consecutive years, IDC sets the standard for credibility and impact. With more than 1,000 analysts worldwide and a truly global perspective, we combine deep expertise with practical relevance. Here, your ideas matter, your voice is heard, and your contributions provide the insights leaders rely on every day. It is meaningful work, backed by a culture that supports growth, collaboration, and long-term career development with a globally respected brand.

What We Offer

• 5 weeks of holidays + extra corporate days off 
• Full time, permanent position offered in hybrid model (Prague or Ostrava office, 2 - 3 days office)
• Flexibility to work from home most of the week 
• Sick days 
• Certain flexibility to schedule your working hours 
• Cafeteria system (use points on Flexipasses, pension/life insurance, or Multisport card) 
• Meal allowance

Compensation Transparency

At IDC, we are committed to fair and equitable pay practices. Employees are compensated equitably for their work, aligned with their skills and experience. Salary and incentive structures are determined through a rigorous process that considers experience, education, certifications, role-specific requirements, internal equity, and verified U.S. market data from an independent third-party partner.

Equal Opportunity Employer

IDC is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all qualified persons. Employment eligibility verification required. We participate in E-Verify. #LI-Hybrid#LI-AM1