Senior AI Engineer

About us    KIWI is not just a company, it's a revolution. Since 2019, we have been passionately committed to creating innovative solutions that improve people's lives, helping as many smokers as possible quit smoking. With our headquarters in Croatia and a rapidly expanding international presence, our goal is to become the reference brand in Europe and a global benchmark in the e-cigarette industry.
Our products combine cutting-edge design, innovative technology and a strong commitment to sustainability, proving that changing the world is possible, one step at a time.
KIWI is looking for a Product Manager to join its international team.

Aumenti le sue possibilità di ottenere un colloquio leggendo la seguente panoramica di questo ruolo prima di candidarsi.
The role
We're looking for a Senior AI Engineer to help us build and maintain our internal AI stack. Hands-on role with direct exposure to the tech lead: wide operational autonomy, but architectural and stack decisions are discussed and approved before go-live. You'll work closely with whoever drives the technical roadmap, not in isolation.

Domains you'll work on
Italian-language audio/voice AI pipelines on on-prem infrastructure (privacy by design)
Autonomous LLM agent orchestration with cost, turn, and human-in-the-loop guardrails
OCR and classification on domain-specific documents
AI integration with the company's ERP and e-commerce platforms
UI development from existing designs, accelerated with AI tooling

Core technologies
Python 3.11+, async ecosystem, testing, structured logging
PHP at operational level, for working on existing e-commerce platforms
Applied LLMs:
Anthropic Claude (SDK and headless mode), Ollama, local runtimes on Apple Silicon, Whisper
Agent tooling: design and implementation of custom MCP servers, resumable LLM session orchestration, integration with internal tools
Italian NLP: spaCy, Italian-specific sentiment and topic models, multilingual embeddings
Frontend: modern HTML/CSS/JS
On-prem deploy on macOS, secure remote access
Agentic Git workflow: parallel worktrees, issue-driven, PRs with mandatory human review

Candidate profile
Must Have
4–6 years in AI/ML engineering or senior Python backend with recent LLM-in-production experience
At least one NLP/AI pipeline shipped to production (not just prototypes)
You've written at least one custom MCP server and can justify tool design, schema, and error-handling choices
Comfortable with Anthropic/OpenAI APIs at tool-use and cost-management level
Operational PHP (debug, maintenance, small developments on existing codebases)
Italian native or C1; fluent technical English
Collaborative approach: able to discuss and justify technical choices, accept reviews and scope revisions
Nice to Have
You've shipped local LLM runtimes (Ollama, MLX, vLLM) and know where they break

Experience with ERP platforms (Odoo or similar), even just on the integration side

Experience with Magento or PHP-based e-commerce platforms
Ability to read Figma designs and translate them into frontend code; use of Figma MCP or AI-assisted design-to-code workflows
You've designed autonomous agents with guardrails (cost cap, turn cap, human escalation)

Engagement & compensation
Italian VAT (P.IVA).
Monthly retainer €5,500–6,500 + VAT (equivalent to €60–70k gross salary)
Continuous consulting contract, annual renewal, 25 non-billed days/year by agreement
Hardware provided

Work mode
Full-time. On-site at Buje, Croatia required for the first 4–6 months (technical onboarding and shadowing). xrdbqlu After this period, work mode will be defined by HR based on performance and operational needs.