AI Engineer Lead

Job Title : AI Engineer Lead
Job Type : W2 Contract 
Location : Remote 
Bill Rate :$70/Hr on W2
Duration : 10 months 
Work Authorization: US-Citizen, H-1B, OPT-EAD, GC-EAD

Job Description

Job Summary –

We are seeking a skilled AI Engineer lead with AI and ML experience for Sunnyvale, CA location

Experience Required:

Minimum 8 to 10 years of experience as AI engineer lead

Responsibilities / Experience –

• Lead service rationalization and decomposition across complex enterprise ecosystems
• Design and build API-first, event-driven architectures
• Contribute hands-on to domain services, integrations, and POCs
• Enable service reuse through catalogs, standards, and governance
• Drive incremental legacy modernization (strangler pattern)
• Partner across global teams to influence a platform-first mindset
• Build systems ready for AI agents, automation workflows, and future integrations

Qualifications/Required Skills:

1. Strong Engineering & Architecture Execution

• Deep hands-on experience building and delivering production-grade systems in enterprise environments
• Expertise in microservices, APIs (REST/GraphQL), event-driven architecture (Kafka), and cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/Google Cloud Platform)
• Proven ability to move between architecture design, hands-on coding, and leading engineering teams with a pragmatic, delivery-focused mindset

2. Service Decomposition & Enterprise Modernization

• Strong experience with domain-driven design (DDD), service decomposition, and distributed system design
• Hands-on track record breaking down monoliths/fragmented systems into reusable service layers
• Experience leading modernization efforts using incremental approaches (e.g., strangler pattern) with a focus on reuse, scalability, and clean service boundaries

3. MCP Servers & Gen AI / Agent-Based Systems

• Proven experience building MCP server-based solutions and Gen AI agents from concept through production
• Strong understanding of designing systems for an agentic, AI-driven ecosystem
• Ability to integrate AI into service architectures and make platforms “agent-ready” for future automation and intelligence

4. Experience designing observability strategies: distributed tracing, structured logging, metrics dashboards

5. Deep understanding of zero-trust architecture, API security, and identity federation

6. Hands-on experience with CI CD pipeline design, GitOps workflows, and release engineering

7. Ability to make and communicate well-reasoned architectural trade-offs.

Preferred Skills:

• Expertise with Claude Code or similar AI-assisted development tools
• Experience building service catalogs / internal developer platforms
• Background in highly distributed, multi-region enterprise environments
• Exposure to AI-driven automation workflows at scale

Equal Opportunity Employer : We are an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment including the decision to hire, promote, discipline, or discharge, will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, citizenship/ immigration status, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.