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About This Role
Riot Hospitality Group is seeking a talented Full Stack Engineer (AI Platform \& Product) to join our team! As a hospitality company focused on leveraging AI and emerging technology, we’re shaping the future of guest experience, operations, and consumer engagement. This is the first engineering role of its kind within our organization — a unique opportunity to help build and scale new products, platforms, and internal systems from the ground up. We’re looking for a highly adaptable individual who thrives in fast\-paced environments, enjoys end\-to\-end ownership across the stack, and is excited to help establish the technical foundation of an innovation\-driven business.
The Full Stack Engineer (AI Platform \& Product) will:
- Serve as the primary technical owner across the company’s AI platform, infrastructure, web, and mobile applications in a highly autonomous environment.
- Build, launch, and maintain production\-ready applications and features across web, iOS, and Android platforms.
- Manage and optimize AI/LLM systems, including performance, scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency across production environments.
- Build and support real\-time platform features including live video, streaming, chat, and interactive user experiences.
- Own AWS cloud infrastructure, deployments, CI/CD pipelines, and production operations across multiple services and environments.
- Build and maintain scalable backend services, APIs, data pipelines, and cloud\-based machine learning infrastructure.
- Support AI\-powered recommendation, moderation, and automation initiatives through scalable cloud and machine learning solutions.
- Collaborate with operational and business stakeholders to identify opportunities where AI and technology can improve efficiency, scalability, workflows, and guest experience.
- Partner with leadership to help evaluate operational challenges, prioritize technical initiatives, and shape long\-term product and platform strategy.
- Monitor system health, troubleshoot production issues, and improve observability, alerting, and operational reliability.
- Operate with end\-to\-end ownership across architecture, development, deployment, support, and scaling of systems and applications.
- Establish engineering standards, tooling, infrastructure, and technical best practices as the organization builds its internal technology function.
- Leverage modern AI tooling, managed services, and pragmatic engineering solutions to efficiently build and scale systems.
- Other duties as assigned.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Business Analytics, or similar field (or equivalent experience).
- 5\+ years of experience building, launching, and maintaining production software products end\-to\-end.
- Strong full\-stack engineering experience across web (React/Next.js) and mobile (React Native/Expo) applications.
- Proven experience shipping live applications to the App Store and Google Play Store.
- Experience working with AI/LLM platforms such as Claude, Anthropic, Bedrock, or similar tools in production environments.
- Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure and deployments within AWS environments.
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, and production monitoring tools.
- Comfortable working across multiple languages and systems, including TypeScript, Go, and Python.
- Experience supporting real\-time products and features, including live video, streaming, chat, or real\-time communication systems.
- Ability to troubleshoot, optimize, and support systems in live production environments.
- Comfortable owning products and infrastructure with a high level of autonomy in a fast\-moving startup environment.
- Strong problem\-solving, communication, and decision\-making skills.
- Ability to balance speed, scalability, reliability, and cost when building products.
- Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
- Strong attention to detail, with the ability to multitask.
- Ability to work independently as well as collaboratively within a team.
Preferred Requirements* Previous startup, early\-stage, or founding engineering experience.
- Experience building or supporting live video and real\-time streaming products, including mobile broadcasting and low\-latency streaming.
- Familiarity with creator\-platform features such as subscriptions, in\-app purchases, and App Store / Google Play compliance requirements.
- Experience working with AI infrastructure tools such as LLM gateways, prompt caching, model evaluation, or observability platforms.
- Exposure to retrieval systems (RAG), vector search, or AI agent/tool orchestration workflows.
- Experience with machine learning infrastructure, recommendation systems, moderation tooling, or MLOps workflows.
- Familiarity with high\-scale real\-time systems, messaging, or event\-driven architectures.
- Experience with cloud edge/CDN platforms and performance optimization tools.
- Understanding of security, authentication, geo\-compliance, or identity/access management best practices.
- Experience working within monorepos or multi\-service engineering environments.
Benefits
- Fun work environment in a sweet location with an amazing and collaborative team!
- Flexible work schedule to include work\-from\-home and in\-office days
- Access to medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short\-term \& long\-term disability, voluntary benefits, and employee assistance program, and pet insurance
- Paid time off including vacation, sick leave, and company holidays
- Employee discounts at our many venues
- Exclusive access to events, shows, and other happenings
About Riot Hospitality Group
Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Riot Hospitality Group is a premier, national hospitality management company dedicated to evolving the typical restaurant landscape into one that provides unique and meaningful experiences for each and every guest.
Here at RHG, we are passionately focused on transforming restaurant and nightlife hospitality. We have transformed the industry's landscape through pushing the envelope of the typical hospitality experience, while maintaining exceptional customer service. The brands under management include Dierks Bentley's Whiskey Row, El Hefe, Farm \& Craft, Hand Cut, Riot House, CAKE, Cottontail Lounge / Living Room / WET Deck, Maya Day\+Night, Shiv Steakhouse, Kauboi, Allegra, and F/Sixteen.
Our mission is simple: To make every single hospitality experience better than the last. We pride ourselves on doing this through leading by example, and our passion for excellence is derived from a lifetime dedication to learning and a commitment to true hospitality.
Role Details
About This Role
AI Software Engineers build the applications and systems that AI models run inside. They own the API layers, data pipelines, frontend integrations, and infrastructure that turn a model into a product users interact with. Every AI company needs engineers who can build the software around the AI.
The challenge is building reliable systems around inherently unreliable components. Models are probabilistic. They'll give different answers to the same question. They hallucinate. They're slow. They're expensive. Your job is to build an application layer that handles all of this gracefully while delivering a product that users trust and enjoy.
Across the 3,824 AI roles we're tracking, AI Software Engineer positions make up 7% of the market. At Riot Hospitality Group, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
AI Software Engineer roles are among the most numerous in the AI job market. Every company deploying AI needs software engineers who understand AI integration patterns. The demand is broad, spanning startups to enterprises, across every industry adopting AI capabilities.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week includes: building API endpoints that serve model inference with caching and fallback logic, designing the data pipeline that feeds context to a RAG system, implementing streaming responses in the frontend, debugging a race condition in the async inference pipeline, and optimizing database queries for the vector search layer. It's full-stack engineering with AI at the center.
AI Software Engineer roles are among the most numerous in the AI job market. Every company deploying AI needs software engineers who understand AI integration patterns. The demand is broad, spanning startups to enterprises, across every industry adopting AI capabilities.
Skills Required
Full-stack engineering skills with AI integration experience. Python and TypeScript are the most common requirements. You'll need to understand API design, database architecture, and how to build reliable systems around probabilistic outputs. Experience with streaming, async processing, and caching patterns is increasingly important as real-time AI applications proliferate.
Knowledge of vector databases, embedding APIs, and LLM integration patterns (function calling, structured outputs, retry logic) differentiates AI software engineers from general software engineers. Understanding cost optimization (caching strategies, model routing, batched inference) is valuable since inference costs can dominate application economics.
Strong postings describe the product you'll be building, the AI integration patterns you'll work with, and the scale requirements. Look for companies that have existing AI features and need engineers to improve and expand them, not companies that are 'planning to add AI' someday.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI Software Engineer roles pay a median of $234,620 based on 682 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $160,000.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $200,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($293,500) and AI Safety ($274,200). By seniority level: Entry: $97,380; Mid: $160,000; Senior: $227,400; Director: $243,000; VP: $250,000.
Riot Hospitality Group AI Hiring
Riot Hospitality Group has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across AI Software Engineer. Based in Scottsdale, AZ, US.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 16% (613 positions) offer remote work, while 3,187 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,448 roles, $210,000 median); San Francisco (1,990 roles, $253,000 median); Los Angeles (1,686 roles, $189,000 median).
Career Path
Common paths into AI Software Engineer roles include Software Engineer, Full-Stack Developer, Backend Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward Staff Engineer, AI Architect, Engineering Manager.
If you're a software engineer, you're already 80% there. Learn the AI integration patterns: RAG, streaming inference, function calling, structured outputs. Build a project that demonstrates you can wrap an AI model in a production-quality application with proper error handling, caching, and user experience. That's the portfolio piece that gets you hired.
What to Expect in Interviews
Technical screens look like standard software engineering interviews with an AI twist. Expect system design questions about building reliable applications around probabilistic models: handling streaming responses, implementing retry logic for API failures, and designing caching strategies for LLM outputs. Coding rounds test standard algorithms plus practical integration patterns like async processing and rate limiting.
When evaluating opportunities: Strong postings describe the product you'll be building, the AI integration patterns you'll work with, and the scale requirements. Look for companies that have existing AI features and need engineers to improve and expand them, not companies that are 'planning to add AI' someday.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 3,824 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 119 entry-level, 1,813 mid-level, 1,472 senior, and 420 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 16% of the market (613 positions). The remaining 3,187 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $200,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($293,500 median, 31 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 51 roles); Research Engineer ($260,000 median, 401 roles).
AI Software Engineer roles are among the most numerous in the AI job market. Every company deploying AI needs software engineers who understand AI integration patterns. The demand is broad, spanning startups to enterprises, across every industry adopting AI capabilities.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 3,824 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,702), Data Scientist (281), AI Software Engineer (258). 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 (119) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,813) and senior (1,472) 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 420 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 16% of all AI roles (613 positions), with 3,187 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 $200,000. Top-quartile roles start at $253,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $307,500. 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 Engineering Manager roles lead at $293,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $142,800. 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 (1,968 postings), Aws (1,203 postings), Azure (882 postings), Rag (877 postings), Gcp (735 postings), Prompt Engineering (587 postings), Pytorch (586 postings), Claude (554 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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