The Senior Applied AI Engineer is a hands-on software engineer specializing in the practical application of AI within production systems. This role sits at the intersection of software engineering, system design, and applied machine learning, with a focus on building AI-enabled features that are observable, testable, and safe. This is not a research role. It is a product- and systems-oriented role for an engineer who understands that AI is an amplifier of engineering fundamentals and who can balance experimentation with operational discipline.
Key Responsibilities
Design, build, and operate AI-enabled features within production SaaS applications
Integrate large language models and other ML capabilities into existing systems with attention to reliability, latency, and cost
Design AI workflows including retrieval, orchestration, evaluation, and fallback strategies
Partner with product and design teams to translate user needs into intelligent system behavior
Collaborate with platform and DevSecOps teams to ensure AI systems are secure, observable, and scalable
Build evaluation strategies to measure quality, regressions, and business impact of AI features
Contribute to system and service design to ensure AI capabilities fit cleanly into overall architecture
Apply strong software engineering practices including testing, code review, and incremental delivery
Mentor other engineers and share best practices for applied AI development
Stay current with evolving AI tools and techniques, applying them pragmatically where they add value
Qualifications
8+ years of professional software engineering experience
Hands-on experience building and shipping AI-enabled features in production
Strong foundation in system design, APIs, and distributed systems
Experience working with LLMs and other ML models
Familiarity with evaluation, monitoring, and observability of AI workflows
Experience with cloud-native architectures and managed cloud services
Comfort working across backend services, data pipelines, and user-facing systems
Requirements
Strong communication skills, able to explain AI trade-offs clearly
Structured thinker with good engineering judgment
Comfortable operating in ambiguity and iterating based on feedback
Ability to work cross-functionally with product, platform, and data teams
Bias toward shipping value safely and incrementally
Mindset and Values
Builder mindset with pride in reliable, maintainable software
Believes AI amplifies both good and bad engineering practices
Customer-focused, measuring success through real-world impact
Learning-first attitude and intellectual humility
Calm under pressure and disciplined in execution
Values teamwork and shared ownership
What Success Looks Like
AI-enabled features deliver measurable customer and business value
AI systems are reliable, observable, and cost-effective
Engineering teams can safely build on shared AI patterns and infrastructure
AI experimentation leads to production outcomes, not dead ends
The Senior Applied AI Engineer is trusted as a practical expert and partner across teams
Company Description
CINC Systems is the largest provider of accounting and management software in the community association management industry and the innovator behind accounting and banking integration. Founded in 2005 by a banker as the industry’s first SaaS offering, CINC Systems now employs nearly 400 people and provides software and applications to more than 50,000 associations servicing over 5 million doors.
In January of 2024, Hg Capital made a significant investment in CINC to accelerate the company’s growth trajectory and institute rapid product development.
At CINC, innovation drives our growth, and our people sustain it. We are proud of our humble, accountable, and team-oriented culture, and we are committed to building products and a workplace that create long term value for our customers and our team.