Sr AI & Software Engineer
About the Role
Join an elite innovation team at Rōnin Consulting where AI engineering and full-stack software development converge. This is a contract-to-hire engagement — a 9-month contract with a clear path to permanent placement for the right candidate.
As a Sr AI & Software Engineer based in Nashville, TN, you will provide technical leadership designing and delivering production-grade Generative AI solutions for a Fortune 500 healthcare client with a nationwide footprint.
This role demands real production delivery — not POCs, not demos. You will architect Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, agentic workflows, grounding pipelines, and vector store infrastructure, and integrate them into enterprise-grade full-stack applications. The client's AI stack is centered on enterprise cloud AI platforms — GCP Vertex AI and Gemini are the primary environment, but engineers with equivalent depth on AWS (Bedrock, SageMaker) or Azure (AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI) are strongly encouraged to apply. Cloud platform depth matters more than which hyperscaler is on your resume.
This is a role for a senior engineer with 8+ years of experience who thrives at the frontier of AI innovation: equally comfortable designing a vector store schema, building a grounding pipeline, writing a clean API, and translating complex AI concepts for non-technical healthcare stakeholders. Prior healthcare or regulated-domain experience is a meaningful advantage with this client.
Responsibilities
Generative AI & Agentic Systems
- Lead the design, development, and deployment of scalable, production-grade Generative AI solutions on enterprise cloud platforms (GCP Vertex AI / Gemini, AWS Bedrock / SageMaker, or Azure AI Foundry / Azure OpenAI)
- Architect and build sophisticated Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems that ground LLMs in proprietary and domain-specific data, ensuring response accuracy and factual reliability in regulated healthcare contexts
- Design and implement efficient data pipelines for preparing, processing, and embedding data into vector stores, with attention to data governance and compliance requirements
- Develop grounding strategies and design the data structures needed to connect LLMs with enterprise and real-time information sources
- Design and implement agentic AI systems capable of complex reasoning, multi-step task execution, and autonomous operation using frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, Google ADK, or custom orchestration
- Integrate the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to standardize LLM-to-tool communication and enhance system interoperability where applicable
- Build and deploy evaluation frameworks, guardrails, and monitoring to ensure model reliability and safety in production
- Perform proof-of-concept and proof-of-technology work to secure stakeholder buy-in for new AI initiatives
Full-Stack Software Engineering
- Design client-side and server-side architecture with clearly defined AI integration points and attention to security and data protection in healthcare environments
- Build enterprise-grade applications in your language of strength (Python, Java, Node.js, C#, or similar), including APIs, services, and integrations with AI endpoints and third-party platforms
- Develop and manage robust SQL and NoSQL databases and application layers, including reusable data objects and automated testing frameworks
- Work with Docker/Kubernetes, serverless, and microservice architectures in cloud-native environments
- Implement security, data protection, and compliance controls appropriate to healthcare and enterprise environments
- Partner with data scientists and AI engineers to optimize intelligent features, pipeline performance, and system reliability
Leadership & Collaboration
- Explain complex AI architectures and trade-offs clearly to non-technical and mixed business/technical stakeholders in a healthcare enterprise context
- Provide technical mentorship and foster a collaborative, growth-oriented team environment
- Lead investigations and solution proposals for complex engineering and design challenges in the AI domain
- Guide team members in scope-of-work estimation and forecasting for AI-related projects
- Collaborate with business stakeholders, product owners, and clinical or operational teams to capture functional and non-functional requirements
- Drive delivery using Agile practices and principles; write clear technical documentation for systems, APIs, and AI workflows
Requirements & Skills
What We're Looking For
- Growth mindset and genuine curiosity in the rapidly evolving field of AI
- Adaptability and comfort navigating diverse technical ecosystems and ambiguous problem spaces
- Strong organizational skills and great attention to detail
- Collaborative spirit with the ability to work independently and lead a team toward specific outcomes
- Ability to lead community events and internal knowledge-sharing focused on software development and delivery
- Strong understanding of codebase context and its relationship to broader business objectives
Education
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Statistics, or a relevant technical field. Equivalent practical experience with a strong portfolio of AI and software engineering work will be considered.
Why Rōnin Consulting
- Competitive contract compensation with a structured path to full-time placement
- Contract-to-hire structure: 9-month engagement with conversion for the right candidate
- Collaborative, close-knit team of AI and engineering specialists in Nashville
- Leadership committed to technical excellence and quality delivery
- Opportunity to work at the absolute forefront of GCP-native AI development
- Diverse client portfolio spanning healthcare, finance, government, and enterprise