Staff AI Engineer at Robots & Pencils

Newark, NJFull-timeEngineeringPosted 20 days ago

About the Role

Staff AI Engineer  Onsite 1-2 Day(s) a Week in Newark, NJ Office.  At Robots & Pencils, we build meaningful, scalable digital products that solve real business problems.  We’re looking for a Staff AI Engineer to support the development and delivery of complex, integration-heavy platforms. This role is ideal for an experienced engineer who thrives in hands-on development, can confidently own features and deployments, and contributes to team leadership within a pod.  In this role, you will work as a key contributor on a cross-functional team, building across the stack while helping guide delivery, improve systems, and solve challenging integration problems, including AI-native platforms such as agentic learning systems designed to enable human-centered learning in the Age of AI.  This is not a greenfield project. You’ll be joining a mature, production environment with real users, where reliability, performance, and scalability are critical. You’ll collaborate closely with senior engineers to enhance existing systems and deliver high-quality features.  By joining us, you leverage our Advanced AWS Partnership and the highly exclusive AWS Patterns Partnership, a distinction held by only 11 companies worldwide out of 190,000.  What You’ll Do  Development  <ul> <li> Build and maintain backend services using Python and Node.js, including serverless architectures (e.g., AWS Lambda, API Gateway) • Develop and integrate APIs that support frontend applications and external systems • Contribute to frontend features and ensure smooth integration across the stack  • Write clean, maintainable, and well-tested code with strong unit testing practices </li> </ul> Workflow & System Orchestration  <ul> <li> Support the development and maintenance of workflows using orchestration tools (e.g., Sequencer / workflow engines, state machines) • Contribute to event-driven processes and asynchronous system operations (e.g., SQS,EventBridge)  • Assist in improving reliability through better error handling and retries </li> </ul>  Backend & API Engineering  <ul> <li> Develop RESTful APIs and support the BE architecture  • Integrate with third-party services and internal systems, including AI-driven platforms  • Assist in optimizing performance and scalability of services using DynamoDB single-table design patterns (composite keys, transactional writes)  • Implement secure and reliable data handling practices </li> </ul> System Reliability & Support  <ul> <li> Troubleshoot issues in production environments with guidance from senior team members • Contribute to logging, monitoring, and debugging efforts • Support deployment and release processes in cloud-native environments (AWS, Docker) </li> </ul> Collaboration & Growth  <ul> <li> Work closely with cross-functional teams across global locations • Participate in code reviews and team discussions  • Take ownership of assigned features and tasks, delivering end-to-end solutions  • Continue developing technical skills and leveraging AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code) </li> </ul>  Required Skills & Experience  <ul> <li> 6+years of professional software engineering  • Strong experience with Python and Node.js  • Experience with LLM function/tool calling, prompt engineering, multi-agent orchestration, vector databases (OpenSearch), embeddings, streaming LLM responses, RAG concepts. </li> <li>Experience working with AWS cloud environments, including Lambda, DynamoDB (and Single-Table design), S3, SQS, EventBridge, Step Functions, etc. </li> <li>Experience building and maintaining fullstack applications  • Exposure to workflow orchestration tools (e.g., Sequencer or similar systems)  • Solid understanding of API design and backend systems  • Familiarity with databases (SQL and/or NoSQL, including scalable design patterns)  • Experience working in production environments  • Strong unit testing practices and maintainable test strategies  • Experience with containerization (e.g., Docker) </li> </ul>

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