AI Lead Engineer

AI Lead Engineer

This is an On-site position in Charleston, SC.

Position Overview

We are seeking an AI Lead Engineer who combines strong hands-on technical ability with emerging leadership and product instincts. This role is ideal for someone who has worked in a startup or fast-paced environment, understands how AI systems move from prototype to real-world deployment, and is ready to grow into a team leadership position.

You will initially operate as a primary contributor, designing models, building training pipelines, and delivering AI-driven features, while helping shape the technical direction of our AI efforts. As products mature, you will take on increasing responsibility for mentoring junior engineers and building a small, high-performing team.

Key Responsibilities

Hands-On AI Development

• Design, build, and train machine learning and deep learning models (CNNs, transformers, RL, etc.)
• Develop scalable training pipelines and data processing workflows
• Work across the stack: data ingestion, model development, evaluation, and deployment
• Build and maintain AI systems (backend and, where applicable, user-facing interfaces)

Applied Product Development

• Translate AI capabilities into deployable features aligned with business needs
• Balance model performance with real-world constraints (latency, cost, reliability)
• Collaborate with stakeholders to prioritize features and iterate quickly
• Contribute to system architecture decisions as products evolve

Emerging Technical Leadership

• Provide guidance and informal mentorship to junior engineers
• Help establish coding standards, experimentation practices, and development workflows
• Participate in hiring as the team grows
• Gradually take ownership of technical direction for AI initiatives

R&D and Innovation

• Explore and prototype new approaches, including novel neural network architectures
• Apply advanced statistical inference and predictive modeling t...