Senior AI Engineer; Ph.D

Position: Senior AI Engineer (Ph.D. required)
About Exponent

Exponent is the only premium engineering and scientific consulting firm with the depth and breadth of expertise to solve our clients’ most profoundly unique, unprecedented, and urgent challenges.  Our vision is to engage multidisciplinary teams of science, engineering, and regulatory experts to empower clients with solutions that create a safer, healthier, more sustainable world. For over five decades, we've connected the lessons of past failures with tomorrow's solutions to advise clients as they innovate technologically complex products and processes, ensure the safety and health of their users, and address the challenges of sustainability.  

Join our team of experts with degrees from top programs at over 500 universities and extensive experience spanning a variety of industries. At Exponent, you’ll contribute to the diverse pool of ideas, talents, backgrounds, and experiences that drives our collaborative teamwork and breakthrough insights. Plus, we help you grow your career through mentoring, sponsorship, and a culture of learning. Thanks for your interest in joining our team!  

Key statistics: 950+ Consultants 640+ Ph.D.s 90+ Disciplines 30+ Offices globally

Our Opportunity

We are currently seeking a Senior AI Engineer for our Computer, Data & Security Sciences Practice in Houston, TX. In this role, you will help design, build, and scale AI solutions — including generative and agentic AI systems — for client organizations across industries such as utilities, energy, life sciences, consumer electronics, and manufacturing. You will work alongside Exponent's multidisciplinary scientists and engineers to translate complex, real-world problems in safety-critical and highly regulated environments into production-grade AI applications.

You will be responsible for

Architecting, developing, and deploying end-to-end AI solutions for clients, from data foundations through model development to production deployment

Building generative AI applications, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems, LLM-powered assistants, and domain-specific copilots grounded in enterprise knowledge

Designing and implementing agentic AI architectures — multi-agent workflows, tool use, orchestration frameworks, and human-in-the-loop controls — for complex analytical and operational tasks

Developing knowledge representation layers (knowledge graphs, ontologies, semantic search) that ground AI systems in trusted, domain-specific context

Deploying and scaling AI workloads on cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), including containerized services, vector databases, and MLOps/LLMOps pipelines

Rapidly prototyping and iterating on models, analyses, and visualizations in fast-paced, client-facing engagements

Implementing responsible AI practices, including evaluation frameworks, guardrails, observability, and alignment with client governance and regulatory requirements

Collaborating with Exponent consultants across engineering and scientific disciplines to embed domain expertise into AI solutions

Communicating technical approaches and results clearly to both technical and executive client stakeholders

Mentoring junior team members and contributing to the growth of Exponent's AI capabilities and reusable assets

You will have the following skills and qualifications

Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related field5+ years of hands-on experience building and deploying machine learning and AI systems in production environments after the completion of the Ph.D.Demonstrated experience with generative AI, including LLM application development, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and RAG architectures

Experience with agentic frameworks and…