AI Engineer

Overview

Guidepoint is seeking a seasoned AI Engineer to join its AI team based in Toronto. The Toronto Technology Hub focuses on building a modern infrastructure for data analytics and responsible AI, supporting Guidepoint's next-generation research and data products powered by Generative AI. This strategic role involves leading the development of AI-driven platforms and products, including large language model (LLM) applications and advanced research agents, enabling responsible AI integration and cutting-edge MLOps practices.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop scalable, low-latency backend services and APIs to support Generative AI features such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and complex agentic systems.
• Manage the complete lifecycle of AI applications, from design and development through deployment and monitoring using platforms like Databricks and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
• Enhance RAG pipelines by optimizing retrieval parameters, implementing re-ranking algorithms, advanced chunking, and prompt engineering to minimize hallucination.
• Integrate LLMs with proprietary knowledge bases, external APIs, and live data streams to build advanced copilots and research assistants.
• Lead the establishment of best practices for LLM operations (LLMOps), including automated evaluation frameworks, AI observability, and performance monitoring.
• Research and apply innovative prompt engineering techniques such as Chain-of-Thought and ReAct to boost performance and safety of proprietary and open LLMs.
• Provide mentorship and technical leadership to junior engineers through code reviews and design discussions to raise engineering quality.
• Collaborate with product and business teams to define technical requirements, prioritize initiatives, and guide AI product development direction.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related field with 6+ years of professional experience; or Master’s degree with 4+ years in backend software engineering and Generative AI.
• Proven experience designing, building, and scaling production-grade distributed systems.
• Strong proficiency in Python and backend frameworks such as FastAPI or Flask, including asynchronous programming (asyncio), RESTful API design, and microservices architecture.
• Expertise with full operational lifecycle including testing, CI/CD (e.g. ArgoCD), observability, monitoring, alerting, uptime maintenance, and zero-downtime deployment.
• Experience with cloud platforms (Azure preferred, AWS/GCP acceptable), containerization (Docker), and orchestration technologies (Kubernetes, Helm).
• At least two years developing production AI applications using large language models from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google Gemini, with familiarity in RAG, hybrid search using vector databases (Pinecone, Elasticsearch), multi-agent AI systems, and prompt engineering.
• Competence in designing and applying robust evaluation and monitoring frameworks for LLM-based systems using tools such as LLM Judges and MLflow.
• Experience with large-scale data processing frameworks including Databricks and Apache Spark.
• Working knowledge of modern AI development libraries like LangChain or LlamaIndex for building LLM applications.
• Strong leadership qualities, demonstrated ability to guide technical projects and mentor engineers.

Compensation & Benefits

The annual base salary for this position ranges from CAD 135,000 to CAD 210,000. In addition, the role is entitled to an annual performance-based discretionary bonus. Employees receive paid time off, a comprehensive benefits package, company RRSP matching, and professional development opportunities via an online learning platform.

Interview Process

• Initial virtual talent acquisition screening (30 minutes).
• Virtual interview with the hiring manager (1 hour).
• Onsite live coding and system design assessment (2 hours).
• Virtual technical leadership interview (1 hour).
• Reference checks with three professional contacts.
• Final job offer.

About Guidepoint

Guidepoint delivers comprehensive research workflow support for leading research teams worldwide. Leveraging a vast expert network and a dedicated workforce of over 1,600 employees, the company provides real-time access to expertise, primary research, and actionable insights. Its range of offerings includes consultations, surveys, events, proprietary content, and AI-assisted tools that support decision-making processes from hypothesis development through insights validation.

Guidepoint values diversity and inclusion, fostering an environment where individuals from all backgrounds can thrive and contribute meaningfully.