AI Platform and Solutions Engineer

Description Invent the future with us. Ampere is a semiconductor design company for a new era, leading the future of computing with an innovative approach to CPU design focused on high-performance, energy efficient, sustainable cloud computing. By providing a new level of predictable performance, efficiency, and sustainability, Ampere is working with leading cloud suppliers and a growing partner ecosystem to deliver cloud instances, servers and embedded/edge products that can handle the compute demands of today and tomorrow. Join us at Ampere and work alongside a passionate and growing team - we'd love to have you apply! About the role and team: As an AI Platform & Solutions Engineer, you will build and operate Ampere's internal AI platform and the user-facing tools that sit on top of it. You'll deliver secure AI applications (chat/agent/workflow UIs), develop integrations that connect LLMs to enterprise systems, and run core platform components (vector/RAG services, model access, deployments, monitoring). Your work will directly improve developer productivity, knowledge discovery, and operational automation across the company while protecting Ampere IP. This is a builder/operator role: ship features, wire them into real systems, and keep them reliable. AI Platform work at Ampere is focused on enabling every employee with practical, secure AI capabilities. The team builds foundational platform services and high-impact internal tools from the ground up, partnering with engineering, manufacturing, and operations to turn ambiguous workflows into deployed systems. You'll operate close to production realities: identity, permissions, observability, cost controls, and uptime matter as much as model quality. What you'll achieve: AI Infrastructure & Platform Operations • Core stack: Python + FastAPI, Svelte/SvelteKit + TypeScript, Azure, Microsoft Entra. • AI infrastructure management: Own and evolve core components like vector/RAG services, model access, model serving environments (cloud and on-prem where applicable), and underlying compute. • Containerization & deployment: Package and deploy services with Docker, primarily to Azure VMs (and adjacent Azure services as needed). • Observability & reliability: Implement logs/metrics/traces using Azure Monitor/Application Insights, build dashboards, and configure actionable alerts. • Secrets, config, and access: Manage secrets via Key Vault, use managed identities, and enforce least-privilege access patterns. • CI/CD: Build pipelines (GitHub Actions and/or Azure DevOps) for build/test/deploy across environments. Backend Services, RAG, and Enterprise Integrations • Backend development: Build and extend FastAPI services (endpoints, adapters, background jobs, structured payloads, pagination, and error handling). • Model Context Protocol (MCP) / tool integrations: Design and maintain MCP-style tools and connectors that link models/agents to enterprise systems like Jira/Confluence, ticketing systems, knowledge bases, NetSuite/manufacturing tools, and internal services. • RAG implementation: Build practical RAG foundations: chunking, embeddings, retrieval filters/metadata, batch upserts, and index maintenance across vector/search systems. • LLM integration: Integrate with LLM APIs (Azure Foundry/Google Vertex AI) including streaming and tool/function calling. AI Apps, Agents, and Workflow Surfaces • Internal AI web apps: Own user-facing web UIs (primarily Svelte/SvelteKit + TypeScript) with strong fundamentals around routing, SSR, state, performance, and accessibility. • Real-time AI UX: Implement streaming responses via SSE/WebSockets, resilient chat/task interfaces, incremental rendering, retries, and degraded-mode handling. • Agents and workflow automation: Build multi-step agents and workflows with tool calls, approvals, progress events, audit trails, and safe failure modes. • Solution delivery: Ship tools that improve day-to-day work, including internal chat/agent apps, workflow automation, and developer productivity integrations (e.g., VS Code, Open WebUI, external AI tools where appropriate). Security, Identity, and Safe Enterprise AI • Authentication and authorization: Implement Microsoft Entra ID auth for web apps/APIs using OIDC/OAuth2 (MSAL), validate tokens (JWT/JWKS), and enforce scopes/RBAC. • Data protection and auditability: Ensure safe enterprise use of LLMs with clear permission boundaries, logging/audit trails, and secure handling of sensitive data. Platform Enablement • Partner with internal teams (engineering, manufacturing, ops) to gather requirements, translate them into working systems, document architecture and playbooks, and support adoption. About you: • Bachelors degree & 2 years of related experience; or an advanced degree without experience. • Software engineering experience delivering production systems (or equivalent portfolio). • Strong Python proficiency (required) with experience building production services (FastAPI preferred). • Frontend capability: Strong TypeScript/JavaScript fundamentals and experience with a modern framework (Svelte preferred; React/Vue acceptable). • Hands-on experience integrating LLM APIs including streaming and tool/function calling. • Working understanding of RAG and vector search fundamentals. • Experience deploying and operating applications in cloud environments (Azure strongly preferred). • Practical knowledge of REST APIs and integration patterns. • Working understanding of OIDC/OAuth2 and web auth flows; Entra ID experience strongly preferred. • Git proficiency (branching, PRs, code review) and comfort in Linux dev environments. • Ability to operate independently: take ambiguous problems, ship solutions, and own them through deployment and iteration. • Clear technical communication: can explain tradeoffs and designs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Nice to Have • Direct MCP development experience (clients/servers; OAuth 2.1). • Vector DB and search ops: Chroma/Pinecone/Weaviate/Qdrant/Azure AI Search, ingestion pipelines, indexing strategy. • Infrastructure as Code: Terraform/Bicep. • Strong CI/CD practices: quality gates, smoke tests, environment promotion. • Caching/rate limiting/cost controls: Redis, batching, token/cost telemetry. • Testing discipline: pytest/Vitest, Playwright, contract testing. • On-prem or hybrid infrastructure exposure; model serving environments. • Internal developer tooling experience (VS Code extensions, CLIs, internal portals like Open WebUI). • Deeper LLM/RAG evaluation and safety: prompt injection defenses, retrieval evaluation, regression tests, A/B testing, auditability. • Exposure to fine-tuning concepts (LoRA/QLoRA) and agent-system failure modes/monitoring. • Core ML fundamentals: supervised/unsupervised learning, bias/variance, overfitting, regularization, cross-validation, metrics. • Deep learning basics: embeddings, attention/transformers at a conceptual level, training vs inference constraints. • LLM-specific mechanics: tokenization, context windows, temperature/top-p, latency/cost tradeoffs, prompt vs fine-tune boundaries. • RAG depth: chunking strategies, embedding model selection, retrieval evaluation (recall@k, MRR), rerankers, hybrid search, query rewriting. • Evaluation discipline: offline eval harnesses, labeled test sets, prompt regression tests, A/B testing, human eval workflows. • Safety/security: prompt injection, data exfiltration paths, least-privilege tool access, sandboxing, output validation. • Agentic systems understanding: planning vs execution, tool selection, state management, failure modes, monitoring agent behavior. What we'll offer: At Ampere we believe in taking care of our employees and providing a competitive total rewards package that includes base pay, bonus (i.e., variable pay tied to internal company goals, long-term incentive, and comprehensive benefits. The full base pay range for this role is between $98,500 and $164,000. Our benefits include health, wellness, and financial programs that support employees through every stage of life, with full benefits eligibility at 20 hours per week. Benefit highlights include: • Premium medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, as well as income protection and a 401K retirement plan, so that you can feel secure in your health and financial future. • Unlimited Flextime and 10+ paid holidays so that you can embrace a healthy work-life balance. • A variety of healthy snacks, energizing espresso, and refreshing drinks to keep you fueled and focused throughout the day. And there is much more than compensation and benefits. At Ampere, we foster an inclusive culture that empowers our employees to do more and grow more. We are passionate about inventing industry leading cloud-native designs that contribute to a more sustainable future. We are excited to share more about our career opportunities with you through the interview process. #LI-Hybrid Ampere is an inclusive and equal opportunity employer and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, citizenship, religion, age, veteran and/or military status, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, physical or mental disability, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law.