AI Engineer

On behalf of our public sector client, Affinity is looking for an AI Engineer to join their Innovation Strategy and Services team. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in an exploratory environment and is passionate about designing real-world AI solutions that transform how services are delivered. You will be at the forefront of developing AI agents, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems, and graph-based AI solutions that enable automation, decision support, and enriched stakeholder experiences.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of autonomous or semi-autonomous AI agents using structured knowledge, embeddings, and advanced reasoning techniques.

• Build and operationalize RAG pipelines, knowledge graphs, and agentic architectures to enable contextualized, dynamic responses for internal and external use cases.

• Collaborate on experiments and prototypes that inform future enterprise AI investments and transformation initiatives.

• Translate business needs into scalable, innovative AI solutions that balance experimentation and feasibility.

• Mentor peers and support the development of a collaborative, innovation-oriented culture within the team.

Qualifications:

• Education: Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a STEM field; equivalent work experience also considered.

• Experience: Minimum 6 years in advanced AI/ML development, preferably in applied enterprise or research settings.

Technical Skills & Expertise

• AI Agents & Agent Frameworks

o Experience building and orchestrating AI agents for real-time decision-making, task automation, and user interaction.

o Familiarity with agent frameworks like LangChain, AutoGen, CrewAI, or custom agent architectures.

o Ability to integrate agents with tools, APIs, or databases, enabling task completion through reasoning and action execution.

• Graph Theory & Knowledge Graphs

o Experience building and querying knowledge graphs to structure enterprise knowledge.

o Familiarity with graph databases such as Neo4j, ArangoDB, or Amazon Neptune.

• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

o Deep understanding of RAG frameworks, including techniques like BM25, Dense Retriever, and generative models (GPT, T5).

o Exposure to advanced RAG approaches: Lazy GraphRAG, MultiHop RAG, Dynamic RAG (DRAG).

• Information Retrieval & Search Algorithms

o Proficient in embedding-based and nearest neighbor search using tools like FAISS, Annoy, or Elasticsearch.

• Graph Data Processing & Manipulation

o Capable of preprocessing complex graph data, performing entity resolution, and using graph-based algorithms such as PageRank, centrality, and community detection.

• Model Training & Optimization

o Skilled in distributed training of large models; familiar with gradient-based optimization, multi-task learning, and quantization.

o Experience optimizing model performance using GPU/TPU acceleration and deployment-ready techniques.

• Embeddings & Vector Representations

o Experienced with graph and sentence embeddings to improve semantic understanding in AI tasks.

o Proficient in vector databases such as Pinecone, CosmosDB, or Weaviate.

• Model Evaluation & Metrics

o Strong grasp of model performance metrics: BLEU, ROUGE, perplexity, and relevance-based evaluation.

o Ability to assess diversity and novelty in generative outputs using metrics like distinctness.

• Cloud, Deployment & DevOps

o Hands-on experience with Azure and containerized deployments (AKS, serverless) for AI applications.

o Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, microservices, and observability for AI solutions in production environments.

• Preferred Qualifications

o Experience working in corporate innovation teams or labs focused on transformation and prototyping.

o Demonstrated ability to work in ambiguous, fast-paced environments, balancing short-term delivery with long-term innovation.

o Strong collaboration skills and a desire to mentor and support others in exploring new technologies.

• Other Skills

o Proficiency in Python or equivalent languages for AI development.

o Experience with transfer learning to improve model performance with minimal labeled data.

o ETL experience for data wrangling and integration with graph databases.

Affinity Earn:

Know someone who’s great for this, or any of our open roles? Earn up to $4,000/year for each successful referral through Affinity Earn. You can also earn up to $50,000 for helping us find new clients. Learn about our referral program at https://affinity-group.ca/earn/ or browse our jobs & follow us at https://www.linkedin.com/company/affinity-staffing/jobs/

About Affinity:

Affinity Group is a technology and business consulting and services company. We believe in creating long term relationships between clients and consultants that foster a mutually beneficial partnership. Affinity is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit and business need.

For more information on Affinity, please visit www.affinity-group.ca

Job Number: 12143