Senior AI Engineer

About Upstep Academy

Upstep Academy is a forward-thinking EdTech company dedicated to revolutionizing the world of chess education. We are building a cutting-edge learning platform that combines a world-class curriculum with innovative technology to create a personalized and effective learning experience for chess enthusiasts of all levels. We believe that by leveraging the power of AI, we can make high-quality chess coaching accessible to everyone.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a talented and passionate Senior AI Engineer to join our team and lead the development of the next generation of our AI-powered learning tools. This is a high-impact role where you will own the design and implementation of core features that directly shape the student experience. You will be responsible for building everything from an AI-powered chess coach that provides real-time feedback to a sophisticated system that generates personalized learning paths for every student.

Key Responsibilities

- Design, develop, and deploy scalable, production-ready AI and Machine Learning features for our core learning platform.

- Integrate and fine-tune Large Language Models (LLMs) to create a natural, human-like conversational coaching experience for our students.

- Collaborate closely with our internal chess experts to translate their deep domain knowledge into technical requirements and effective AI-driven features.

- Develop backend systems to process and analyze chess data at scale.

- Build and maintain data pipelines for training and evaluating machine learning models for tasks such as personalization and content recommendation.

- Own the full lifecycle of AI features, from initial proof-of-concept and prototyping to deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement.

Required Qualifications

- 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong background in backend development (e.g., Python, Node.js, Go, or similar).

- 2+ years of proven, hands-on experience building and deploying AI/ML-powered applications, with a specific focus on using LLM APIs (e.g., OpenAI, Google Gemini, Anthropic).

- Deep understanding of prompt engineering, and experience using LLMs for complex text generation, analysis, and summarization tasks.

- Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to navigate ambiguity and make sound architectural decisions with a high degree of autonomy.

- Excellent communication skills and a collaborative mindset.

Preferred Qualifications (Bonus Points)

- Experience with traditional machine learning frameworks (e.g., Scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow) for developing predictive models or recommendation systems.

- Familiarity with MLOps principles and tools for deploying and monitoring models in production.

- Experience working in a startup or fast-paced EdTech environment.

- An interest in chess is a plus, as it will aid in understanding the product's domain. However, deep expertise is not required, as you will be working closely with our team of tech-savvy chess masters.

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