(Senior) AI Engineer (m/f/d)

You are responsible for AI systems for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), from the first meeting with clients to ongoing operation. WE BUILD AI has existed since February 2025. We are around ten people in a loft office in Cologne-Ehrenfeld and build AI solutions for the upper mid-market.

• Level: Regular or Senior

• Location: Cologne-Ehrenfeld and home office

• Start: immediately

With us, a project is yours

You always work in a project team with other engineers and consultants. Together, you clarify with the business departments and IT management of our clients what they need. You are responsible for the architecture, and we build and operate the system together.

This is how a project works with us

A typical project has three phases, and you accompany all of them as the technically responsible person in the project team.

1. Discovery Sprint with the business department: We define which problem we are solving and how we will measure success.

2. Pilot phase with clear Go/No-Go criteria: You build a first version that users in the business department test.

3. Expansion and operation: If the pilot is successful, you integrate the system into daily operations and keep it stable with monitoring.

Your tasks

Current projects involve a lot of training our own VLMs and addressing what every company is concerned about: the use of Agentic AI throughout the entire corporate cosmos.

• You conceptualize LLM applications with RAG, structured extraction, and agentic workflows and decide on the architecture.

• You develop backend services and APIs in Python, mostly with FastAPI.

• You put the systems into operation and maintain them on Azure, primarily with Azure OpenAI and AI Foundry.

• You ensure quality from the beginning with tests, evaluation, and monitoring.

• Together with our consultants, you clarify requirements with the business departments and IT management of the clients.

Your profile

• You have successfully put at least one LLM application or ML model into operation that people use in their daily work.

• You are proficient in Python, including testing and deployment.

• You have experience with a cloud platform, preferably Azure, alternatively AWS or GCP.

• You can justify your technical decisions, including to clients.

• A completed degree or apprenticeship in computer science, mathematics, data science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• Very good German language skills, as client contact is conducted in German.

• Classical Machine Learning is a plus.

What we offer you

• Accompany the growth of a company and shape a new generation of consulting and engineering

• Benefit budget of 30 Euros per month for vouchers from over 100 providers, Urban Sports Club, or the Deutschlandticket

• Company bike leasing via salary conversion with up to 40 percent savings, including full comprehensive insurance and maintenance

• Flexible working hours and home office based on personal responsibility

• Mentoring, peer reviews, and regular development discussions with honest feedback

• Joint workations and regular team events

• Loft office in Cologne-Ehrenfeld with office dogs, drinks, snacks, and Mario Kart

Honest upfront

We are a small team without our own platform team, and you will make many technical decisions yourself. Those who prefer to work in a large team on their own product will likely be happier elsewhere.

Apply to us

This is the process of our application procedure:

1. Joint call, about 30 minutes. We will talk about you and about us.

2. Test task with approximately 2 hours of effort. Afterwards, you will present your solution in 45 to 60 minutes.

3. Meeting in Cologne with a shared meal, insight into ongoing projects, and technical sparring within the team.

After each step, you will hear from us within one business day. We plan for three weeks from application to offer.

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