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About This Role
We are seeking an AI Solutions Engineer to lead client AI initiatives from discovery through production deployment. You will partner with clients to identify high\-impact Generative AI use cases, evaluate data readiness, and rapidly build proof\-of\-concept applications that demonstrate tangible business value. You will design and implement production\-ready AI solutions leveraging Amazon Bedrock, foundation models, RAG pipelines, and AI agent frameworks such as LangChain and LlamaIndex. As a client\-facing technologist, you will translate business requirements into technical architecture recommendations and guide clients on AI/ML best practices.
Location: This can be a remote opportunity, with 2 weeks of travel into Rochester, NY per quarter
What this role is responsible for:
AI Assessment \& Discovery
- Participate in client discovery workshops and technical interviews to identify and prioritize high\-impact GenAI use cases
- Analyze client data landscapes, evaluating data readiness, quality, and accessibility for AI solutions
- Rapidly design and build proof\-of\-concept (POC) applications and live demonstrations that validate AI use cases and illustrate business value to client stakeholders
- Translate discovery findings into technical specifications, architecture recommendations, and implementation plans
- Present POC results and assessment recommendations to client teams, building confidence and momentum for production investments
GenAI Solution Development
- Design and implement production\-ready Generative AI applications using Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic Claude, and other foundation models
- Build and optimize RAG (Retrieval\-Augmented Generation) pipelines with vector databases (Weaviate, OpenSearch, Pinecone)
- Develop AI agents and multi\-agent orchestration systems using frameworks like LangChain, LlamaIndex, or custom implementations
- Create conversational AI interfaces with natural language understanding, intent detection, and context management
- Implement prompt engineering strategies, few\-shot learning, and fine\-tuning approaches for domain\-specific applications
Client Engagement \& Delivery
- Translate business requirements into technical specifications and suggested implementation plans
- Provide technical guidance and recommendations to clients on AI/ML best practices
- Document architecture decisions, code, and deployment suggestions
What makes someone successful in this role:
- You have a proven track record delivering production AI applications from concept to deployment
- You excel at conducting technical discovery and assessment work, including stakeholder workshops and use\-case identification
- You can build proof\-of\-concept applications and live demonstrations that communicate technical concepts to non\-technical audiences
- You have excellent problem\-solving skills and the ability to work independently with minimal supervision
- You possess strong written and verbal communication skills for client\-facing interactions
- You are passionate about Generative AI and stay current with the latest developments in LLMs, agents, and AI frameworks
Requirements:
- 5\+ years of software engineering experience with at least 2\+ years focused on AI/ML, data engineering, or cloud\-native development
- 2\+ years of hands\-on AWS experience with production deployments
- 1\+ years of direct Generative AI experience (LLMs, embeddings, RAG, agents)
- AWS Certifications: Solutions Architect Associate/Professional, Machine Learning Specialty, or Developer Associate (preferred)
- Background in healthcare, financial services, or regulated industries with understanding of compliance requirements (HIPAA, PCI\-DSS, SOC 2\) (preferred)
- Contributions to open\-source AI/ML projects or published technical content (preferred)
- Experience with multi\-tenant SaaS architectures and data isolation patterns (preferred)
- Knowledge of cost optimization strategies for AI workloads (model selection, caching, batching) (preferred)
- Familiarity with frontend frameworks (React, Angular) for building AI\-powered UIs (preferred)
The salary range provided is a general guideline. When extending an offer, Innovative considers factors including, but not limited to, the responsibilities of the specific role, market conditions, geographic location, as well as the candidate's professional experience, key skills, and education/training
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.
Salary Context
This $120K-$150K range is in the lower quartile for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $175K across 2162 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 70% of the market. At Innovative Solutions, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills Required
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $214,900 based on 6,420 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $194,400. This role's midpoint ($135K) sits 37% below the category median. Disclosed range: $120K to $150K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($287,500) and Research Engineer ($272,100). By seniority level: Entry: $110,000; Mid: $194,400; Senior: $227,400; Director: $274,554; VP: $241,000.
Innovative Solutions AI Hiring
Innovative Solutions has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Based in Rochester, NY, US. Compensation range: $150K - $150K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 15% (635 positions) offer remote work, while 3,657 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (1,650 roles, $220,000 median); San Francisco (1,335 roles, $265,000 median); Los Angeles (708 roles, $214,112 median).
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 4,317 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 138 entry-level, 2,071 mid-level, 1,655 senior, and 453 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (635 positions). The remaining 3,657 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($287,500 median, 34 roles); Research Engineer ($272,100 median, 227 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($244,000 median, 23 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 4,317 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (3,004), Data Scientist (345), AI Software Engineer (309). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (138) are outnumbered by mid-level (2,071) and senior (1,655) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 453 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (635 positions), with 3,657 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $215,000. Top-quartile roles start at $266,300, and the 90th percentile reaches $320,790. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $287,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $145,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (2,249 postings), Aws (1,224 postings), Azure (938 postings), Rag (915 postings), Gcp (660 postings), Pytorch (640 postings), Prompt Engineering (624 postings), Kubernetes (559 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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