Hands-on AI experimentation with agents and LLM integration; focused on rapid prototyping, evaluation, and turning prototypes into production-ready standards.
About the Role
Senior Applied AI Research Engineer responsible for hands-on experimentation with emerging AI technologies (agents, LLM integration, evaluation) and converting findings into organization-wide engineering standards (AI SDLC). Works across research, prototyping, engineering, architecture, and enablement to guide safe, maintainable AI adoption.
Job Description
Role
The Applied AI Research Engineer conducts hands-on experimentation with emerging AI technologies—agents, LLM integration, evaluation techniques, and AI-assisted development—and translates those learnings into practical engineering standards (the AI SDLC) adopted across the organization. This is an experienced engineering role (typically 6+ years) combining research, prototyping, architecture, and organizational enablement.
Key Responsibilities
- Explore emerging AI technologies and engineering patterns through rapid prototyping and experiments
- Formulate hypotheses, design experiments, evaluate results against criteria, and produce concrete engineering recommendations
- Define and continuously evolve the organization-wide AI SDLC
- Assess AI technologies, model outputs, and industry trends; define evaluation criteria and identify failure modes
- Produce clear documentation, reusable guidance, and recommendations for delivery teams and leadership
- Move fluidly between research, prototyping, engineering, architecture discussions, consulting, and enablement
- Collaborate with delivery-facing rollout functions to incorporate real-world adoption feedback
Requirements (Must Have)
- Strong software engineering and architecture fundamentals (APIs, distributed systems, testing, delivery practices, maintainability)
- Hands-on experience with AI agents and agentic workflows
- Experience integrating with LLM APIs and model integration
- Practical experience with evaluation and testing of AI systems
- Awareness of security, privacy, and responsible AI considerations
- Experience with CI/CD and software delivery practices
- Experience with observability and monitoring
- R&D mindset: comfortable operating where established answers do not exist
- Strong critical thinking, systems thinking, and written/verbal communication skills
Nice to Have
- LLM-based application development
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
- Tool/function calling and protocols such as MCP
- API design and integration
- Data pipelines and data management
- Containers and cloud-native development
- Experience with Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, .NET
Benefits
- Medical benefits
- Gym support and personalised fitness options
- Team events and community activities (Healthy Habits Club)
- Work-life flexibility and a hybrid working environment
- Emotional and social wellbeing programs
Location
Headquartered in Cluj-Napoca with offices in Oradea (Romania). The company operates in a hybrid environment.