Platform Engineer – Industrial AI Platform (Intermediate, Senior, Staff)

Our client is a global SaaS company building an industrial-grade AI platform used by energy, manufacturing, and regulated enterprises to automate workflows and make operational data usable at scale. This team owns the core platform that enables internal and partner teams to design, deploy, and operate AI agents in real production environments.

This posting represents multiple open roles on the same platform team. The organization is intentionally hiring across Intermediate (L2), Senior (L3), and Staff (L4) levels to build a strong technical foundation in their new Tempe office.

This is applied platform engineering. The systems you build will run in production, carry real operational risk, and support enterprise customers.

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and operate backend platform services that power an industrial AI agent runtime

• Develop and maintain core Python services and SDKs used by solution and application teams

• Build scalable orchestration and execution systems for AI agents and workflows

• Implement secure and governed frameworks for agent tool usage, including APIs and data access

• Support LLM serving, routing, and performance optimization across multiple models

• Establish observability, evaluation, and testing for LLM-based systems

• Own services end to end including CI/CD, monitoring, on-call participation, and incident response

• Collaborate closely with architects, product managers, and downstream engineering teams

Required Skills & Experience (All Levels)

• Professional experience building backend or platform systems in production environments

• Strong proficiency in Python and backend service design

• Experience deploying and operating services on Kubernetes

• Exposure to cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP

• Solid understanding of distributed systems fundamentals

• Experience working within full SDLC practices including testing, CI/CD, and operations

• Clear written and verbal communication skills

Level-Specific Expectations

Intermediate (L2)

• 3 to 5 years of professional engineering experience

• Strong individual contributor with growing ownership of services

• Comfortable working within existing architectures while learning platform design patterns

Senior (L3)

• 5 to 10 years of experience building and operating complex systems

• Ownership of major components or services within the platform

• Mentorship of junior engineers and influence on technical direction

Staff (L4)

• 10 plus years of experience with large-scale, production platforms

• System-level design ownership across multiple services

• Technical leadership and close partnership with architects and product leadership

Preferred / Nice-to-Have

• Experience building platforms on top of AI, ML, or LLM technologies

• Familiarity with LLM orchestration frameworks and model serving patterns

• Experience with infrastructure as code tools such as Terraform

• Background in data-intensive, regulated, or industrial environments

• Experience designing SDKs or internal developer platforms

A Special Note to Applicants

• The current volume of automated and AI-generated applications is on the rise. If you have read this posting in full and believe this role genuinely aligns with your experience, we encourage you to apply thoughtfully.
• Applicants who include the word “Blue Steel” somewhere in their resume or cover note, or who reach out directly via LinkedIn to the recruiter who appreciates a good Zoolander reference, will help us route submissions more effectively.

Determining compensation for this role (and others) at Vaco/Highspring depends upon a wide array of factors including but not limited to the individual’s skill sets, experience and training, licensure and certifications, office location and other geographic considerations, as well as other business and organizational needs. With that said, as required by local law in geographies that require salary range disclosure, Vaco/Highspring notes the salary range for the role is noted in this job posting. The individual may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses, and can participate in medical, dental, and vision benefits as well as the company’s 401(k) retirement plan. Additional disclaimer: Unless otherwise noted in the job description, the position Vaco/Highspring is filing for is occupied. Please note, however, that Vaco/Highspring is regularly asked to provide talent to other organizations. By submitting to this position, you are agreeing to be included in our talent pool for future hiring for similarly qualified positions. Submissions to this position are subject to the use of AI to perform preliminary candidate screenings, focused on ensuring minimum job requirements noted in the position are satisfied. Further assessment of candidates beyond this initial phase within Vaco/Highspring will be otherwise assessed by recruiters and hiring managers. Vaco/Highspring does not have knowledge of the tools used by its clients in making final hiring decisions and cannot opine on their use of AI products.