Senior Full Stack AI Engineer

Waterloo Data was founded in 2009 with the mission of delivering exceptional consulting services in AI/ML, data management, application development, and cloud engineering.

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Full Stack AI Engineer to join our team. This person will lead the design, development, and deployment of enterprise-grade AI-powered applications that leverage Large Language Models (LLMs) including Claude (Anthropic) and ChatGPT/OpenAI models within a Microsoft Azure and Databricks environment. This role serves as a technical authority, driving architectural decisions, mentoring engineering peers, and partnering with business stakeholders to translate complex requirements into scalable, production-ready AI solutions.

• Architect, develop, and own end-to-end delivery of enterprise AI-powered applications using Claude, ChatGPT, OpenAI APIs, Anthropic APIs, and other LLM platforms, establishing reusable patterns and engineering standards for the team.
• Lead the design and implementation of intelligent agents, copilots, agentic workflows, and knowledge management systems; define architectural guardrails and review implementations across the engineering team.
• Lead front-end architecture decisions and build highly scalable applications using React, Next.js, Angular, or similar frameworks; enforce coding standards, accessibility, and performance benchmarks.
• Design and govern secure authentication, authorization, and user management systems across AI application surfaces, ensuring compliance with organizational security standards.
• Champion user experience quality by developing and reviewing responsive interfaces that enable intuitive, high-performance interaction with AI systems.
• Drive advanced prompt engineering, multi-step agent workflow design, memory and context management, and MCP-based tool integrations; establish evaluation frameworks and best practices adopted across the engineering organization.
• Own AI model performance evaluation and optimization programs, defining benchmarks for accuracy, latency, cost, and user experience; lead trade-off decisions and communicate findings to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• 8+ years of experience in software engineering. Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or related field. Master's degree preferred.
• 4+ years focused on AI/ML product development.
• Expert-level Python programming and backend application development, including design of high-performance, concurrent, and fault-tolerant services at scale.
• Strong experience developing APIs and services using FastAPI, Flask, Django, or similar frameworks.
• Expert-level mastery of software engineering principles, distributed systems design patterns, system architecture, and full software development lifecycle (SDLC) practices, with the ability to set technical direction and establish engineering standards.
• Deep expertise in Large Language Models (LLMs), Generative AI, advanced prompt engineering, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), multi-step AI agent frameworks, and emerging AI architectures; ability to evaluate new capabilities and translate them into production strategy.
• Knowledge of AI platforms and APIs, including OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic Claude, and other enterprise AI services.
• Understanding of cloud computing platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Knowledge of relational, No
  
  SQL, and vector database technologies.
• Familiarity with API development, microservices architecture, authentication protocols, and system integrations.
• Understanding of AI governance, data privacy, cybersecurity, and responsible AI practices.