Founding AI/ML Engineer / Startup / $500k+ / NYC

Founding AI/ML Engineer / (LLMs / RAG / Agentic Systems) / NYC / $500k+ Equity We’re hiring for a world class team at one of the fastest growing & most innovative next-gen aerospace AI companies in North America. They're building LLMs, RAG & high-performance AI systems to power mission-critical operations in defence & space. Only the top 0.1% of America's AI Engineers can do this. If you’ve built real mission critical LLM systems that can’t fail - this could be your next move.

You’ll own & scale a RAG-driven AI system powering critical aerospace operations. Expect to tackle retrieval quality, latency bottlenecks, & eval-driven fine-tuning head-on for the most innovative & exciting real-time systems in Aerospace today. This is full production ownership - from architecture to metrics. You should have experience with: • Deploying LLM-based systems at scale (Llama, Mistral, GPT-4, Claude) • Retrieval optimisation - hybrid search (BM25 + vector), reranking, caching • Evaluation - recall@k, precision@k, groundedness, hallucination metrics • Fine-tuning (LoRA/QLoRA), RAG architecture, LangChain / LlamaIndex • Tooling: Hugging Face, Weaviate/Pinecone, FastAPI, PyTorch, Redis, Postgres • Monitoring inference, eval automation, & continuous improvement loops Bonus: • IoT or Hardware integration or real-time systems experience exp. Ideal background: • CS or Applied ML degree from a top-tier university • Proven 0-1 experience in a fast-moving AI startup, or Defence related company • You’ve shipped reliable GenAI systems under pressure • Degree in Computer Science from a top-tier university • Prior experience in high-performance teams (0-1, startups) • You’ve shipped real systems - not demos You’ll be expected to: • Own the LLM pipeline end-to-end – retrieval → evaluation → fine-tuning • Improve accuracy, grounding, and eval metrics continuously • Make architecture decisions for scale, reliability & speed • Collaborate directly with founders & domain experts Stack: Python / PyTorch / LangChain / Transformers / FastAPI / Hugging Face / Weaviate / Redis / Postgres / Docker / Kubernetes Offer: • Up to $500,000+ base salary + equity • Hybrid in NYC • Tight-knit, high-output team • High ownership, real impact, flat structure Interview Process: 1) Technical Deep Dive 2) Technical Assessment or Live Pairing 3) Panel focused on mindset & team fit Equal Opportunity We're hiring for an Equal Opportunity Employer. If you’ve shipped real GenAI systems, thrive under pressure, and want to see your models power live aerospace systems - this is where theory meets orbit. TL;DR - Senior AI Engineer (NYC, On-site) • Build & scale production-grade GenAI systems from 0 to 1 • Own and improve RAG pipelines - accuracy and latency matter • Deep experience with LLMs, LangChain, Hugging Face & real deployments • Must have shipped working GenAI products, not just prototypes • Ideal: startup DNA, top-tier CS degree, fast execution mindset • $500K base + equity • All our new jobs are posted here 1st: linkedin.com/in/sufyanbashir/