<p>Piper Companies is seeking a Lead AI Engineer to partner with executive technology leadership to build and scale an emerging intelligence function within a growing organization in the technology services industry. The Lead AI Engineer will drive the design, deployment, and integration of advanced AI capabilities across enterprise, mobile, and web platforms.</p> <p>Responsibilities of the Lead AI Engineer:</p> <ul> <li>Partner with the CTO to launch and scale the Emerging Intelligence Group, defining mission, priorities, and early deliverables. </li><li>Deliver AI-driven features across web, mobile, and enterprise platforms. </li><li>Design, build, and deploy LLM-powered applications, RAG pipelines, and scalable APIs connecting model intelligence with real-world experiences. </li><li>Collaborate with Product Engineering to integrate AI into employee- and client-facing systems. </li><li>Serve as a technical liaison between data engineering, software engineering, and product management. </li><li>Partner with Cybersecurity, Legal, and Infrastructure to establish AI governance, ethics, and transparency standards. </li></ul> <p>Qualifications of the Lead AI Engineer:</p> <ul> <li>8+ years of combined software engineering and AI product development experience. </li><li>Hands-on experience designing and deploying LLM / Generative AI solutions. </li><li>Proficiency with LangChain, Hugging Face, LlamaIndex, or similar frameworks. </li><li>Strong RAG architecture and vector database experience. </li><li>Proficient in AWS services (Bedrock, Lambda, S3) and modern full-stack development. </li><li>Experience building and integrating RESTful APIs. Must have Full stack engineering experience </li><li>Excellent communicator with an entrepreneurial, "startup-within-an-enterprise" mindset. Must Be a US Citizen or GC </li></ul> <p>Compensation for the Lead AI Engineer includes:</p> <ul> <li>Salary range: $130,000 - $200,000 plus bonus and LTI </li><li>Comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, 401(k), and PTO </li><li>Hybrid schedule in Durham, NC </li></ul> <p>This job opens for applications on 02/22/2026. Applications for this job will be accepted for at least 30 days from the posting date.</p> <p>#LI-AR2</p> <p>#LI-HYBRID</p>