AI Engineer / Search Engineer
Company: Certified Technical Experts, Inc. (CTE)
Employment Type: Full-Time
Location: Atlanta, GA
Overview
Certified Technical Experts, Inc. (CTE) is seeking an experienced AI Engineer / Search Engineer to support the Federal Labor Relations Authority’s Intelligent Document Processing and AI-Enabled Search initiative.
The project will modernize FLRA’s Microsoft SharePoint repository containing PDF documents into a structured, searchable knowledge repository supporting OCR, document classification, metadata extraction, relationship mapping, semantic search, vector search, natural-language queries, and source-grounded responses.
The AI Engineer / Search Engineer will be responsible for designing, implementing, tuning, testing, and supporting the AI and enterprise search components of the solution. The role will focus on Azure AI Search, Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Document Intelligence, semantic and vector search, embeddings, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), metadata-driven retrieval, document classification, and source-grounded question answering within FLRA’s approved Microsoft 365 GCC/Azure environment.
Key Responsibilities
- Design and implement AI-enabled search capabilities for FLRA’s bargaining unit records.
- Configure and optimize Azure AI Search indexes, fields, filters, analyzers, semantic configurations, and vector search.
- Implement keyword, Boolean, full-text, metadata, semantic, and vector-based search capabilities.
- Develop and support natural-language question answering and source-grounded responses using Azure OpenAI or other approved AI services.
- Implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) patterns using FLRA documents, extracted metadata, and search indexes.
- Generate, store, and manage embeddings used for semantic and vector retrieval.
- Ensure AI-generated responses cite or reference the originating Government documents.
- Support document classification, metadata extraction, and confidence scoring using Azure AI Document Intelligence and related AI capabilities.
- Develop logic for identifying and maintaining relationships among bargaining unit records, including amendments, consolidations, reorganizations, revocations, successorship determinations, and related cases.
- Develop and tune relevance-ranking strategies to improve search accuracy and usability.
- Configure metadata filters and structured retrieval using FLRA-required fields such as agency, bargaining unit, labor organization, case number, docket number, certification type, dates, region, and location.
- Support human-in-the-loop validation workflows for reviewing AI-generated classifications and metadata.
- Develop evaluation methods for search quality, retrieval relevance, classification accuracy, metadata extraction, and AI response quality.
- Tune prompts, retrieval strategies, chunking approaches, embeddings, and search configurations based on testing and Government feedback.
- Implement guardrails to ensure AI responses remain grounded in authorized FLRA content and do not generate unsupported information.
- Support automated ingestion and indexing of newly received documents.
- Work closely with the Azure Platform & Integration Engineer to integrate AI/search services with SharePoint, APIs, Azure services, and application components.
- Participate in system integration testing, UAT, defect resolution, production deployment, monitoring, and performance tuning.
- Maintain technical documentation covering AI models, prompts, search configurations, index schemas, evaluation methods, and operational procedures.
- Follow Federal security requirements, including CUI protection, FedRAMP-authorized services, least-privilege access, and NIST SP 800-53 controls.
Required Skills
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or related field, or equivalent professional experience.
- 5+ years of software, search, AI, machine learning, or data engineering experience.
- 3+ years of hands-on experience with enterprise search, AI/ML, or cloud-based AI solutions.
- Strong hands-on experience with Azure AI Search or comparable enterprise search technology.
- Experience with semantic search, vector search, embeddings, similarity search, and relevance ranking.
- Experience implementing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions.
- Experience with Azure OpenAI, OpenAI APIs, or comparable large-language-model platforms.
- Experience developing source-grounded question-answering solutions.
- Strong experience with Python, C#/.NET, or similar programming languages.
- Experience with Azure AI Document Intelligence or comparable OCR/document-processing technology.
- Experience with document classification and structured metadata extraction.
- Experience working with unstructured content such as PDFs, scanned documents, and OCR-generated text.
- Experience designing search index schemas, metadata models, filters, and query strategies.
- Experience with text chunking, embedding generation, vector indexing, and retrieval strategies.
- Experience with prompt engineering and LLM integration.
- Experience evaluating and tuning search relevance and AI-generated responses.
- Understanding of hallucination mitigation, grounding, citations, confidence scoring, and responsible AI practices.
- Experience integrating AI/search services with REST APIs, Azure services, or enterprise applications.
- Familiarity with Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Graph API, and Microsoft 365 environments.
- Experience with Git-based source control, CI/CD, testing, and deployment practices.
- Understanding of secure cloud development, identity management, and least-privilege access.
- Strong analytical, troubleshooting, communication, and technical documentation skills.
- Ability to work closely with team and Government stakeholders.
- Ability to successfully complete required FLRA personnel security vetting.
Preferred Certifications
- Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Scientist Associate
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate
- Microsoft Applied Skills related to Azure AI Search, Azure OpenAI, or generative AI
- CompTIA Security+ or equivalent security certification.
