Senior Applied AI Engineer, Retrieval and Semantic Systems at instructure

instructure

Budapest, Hungary·1d ago

SeniorFull-timePythonAWSCI/CDGoAIML

Salary Range

$132,600 - $179,400 /year

Estimated

This salary is estimated based on similar roles. The actual salary may vary.

About the Role

We are looking for a Senior Applied AI Engineer to join our team at Instructure. This role involves owning retrieval and semantic systems end to end, building and operating production retrieval as a core capability. You will work closely with product, engineering, and research partners to turn advanced AI ideas into reliable product capabilities used at scale.

Key Responsibilities

→Design, build, and ship production retrieval systems that power AI product capabilities
→Own vector store selection and operation, including scalability, latency, reliability, cost, and multi-tenant design
→Build indexing and refresh pipelines (chunking, embedding generation, backfills, deletes, versioned indices)
→Implement semantic retrieval patterns, including embeddings, similarity search, metadata filtering, and reranking
→Define and run retrieval evaluation: gold sets, offline metrics, slice analysis, drift detection, and regression gates
→Partner with platform engineers on CI/CD, service templates, monitoring, and incident readiness while owning retrieval correctness and evolution

Requirements

✓6+ years of experience building and shipping production ML or applied AI systems
✓Proven experience owning a retrieval system in production, including vector store selection and operation
✓Strong Python engineering skills and experience building services/APIs (for example, FastAPI or similar)
✓Hands-on experience with embeddings, approximate nearest neighbor search concepts, and retrieval or ranking systems
✓Experience designing indexing and refresh strategies, including data quality controls and safe backfills
✓Strong judgment on tradeoffs across relevance, latency, cost, and operational complexity
✓Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across engineering, product, and research teams

Benefits

★Competitive compensation, plus all full-time employees participate in our ownership program
★Flexible work culture with remote, hybrid, and in-office collaboration spaces
★Generous time off, including local holidays and our annual “Dim the Lights” period
★Comprehensive wellness programs and mental health support
★Annual learning and development stipends to support your growth
★The technology and tools you need to do your best work
★Motivosity employee recognition program
★A culture rooted in inclusivity, support, and meaningful connection