AI Development Specialist - Azure Job Johannesburg area,Johannesburg North South Africa,Software Development

Location: Johannesburg North

Our esteemed client in Sandton is urgently looking for an AI DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST (Azure) / CONTRACTING POSITION
Rate per hour highly negotiable

Lead the design, build, and deployment of production-grade AI solutions on Microsoft Azure. Own end-to-end delivery—from data pipelines to model deployment, ensuring security, reliability, and compliance.

Required Experience:

Degree in Computer Science/Engineering/Math or equivalent industry experience.
7+ years in software/ML engineering, with 3+ years delivering production AI solutions on Azure.
Proven track record of shipped solutions with architecture diagrams and runbooks.
Expertise in RAG system design, prompt engineering, and performance optimization.
Strong data engineering skills and secure integration patterns.
Applied knowledge of Responsible AI principles and compliance requirements.

Core Tech Stack:

Azure AI & ML:
Azure OpenAI Service, AI Studio, AI Search, Azure Machine Learning.
Data & Integration:
Data Lake Storage, Synapse/Fabric, Data Factory, Event Hub, API Management.
Compute & Hosting: AKS, Azure Functions, App Service;
IaC with Bicep/ARM/Terraform.
Dev Ops/MLOps:
Azure Dev Ops or Git Hub Actions, MLflow integration, telemetry dashboards.
Languages:
Python (required), plus C#/.NET or Type Script/Node;
Lang Chain or Semantic Kernel preferred.

Responsibilities:

Design and implement AI solutions using Azure AI services (OpenAI, AI Search, Machine Learning).
Develop secure APIs and integrate with enterprise systems using Azure API Management and Event Hub.
Containerize workloads and deploy to AKS, App Service, or Functions with CI/CD pipelines.
Ensure observability, performance tuning, and cost optimization for AI workloads.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams and document architecture, runbooks, and best practices.

Core Competencies:

Outcome-oriented with strong problem-solving skills.
Excellent communication and stakeholder management abilities.
Collaborative leadership and mentoring capability.
Adaptability to ambiguity and incremental delivery approaches.

Nice to have:

Experience with Microsoft Fabric and Databricks on Azure.
Domain experience in financial services.
Azure AI Engineer Associate certification or equivalent.