Sr. AI Engineer

Description

Funko Overview

Welcome to the Funko-verse, a world built on pure imagination, a land governed by the philosophy that stories matter, a universe comprised of characters from countless fandoms, a galaxy of once upon a times and happily ever afters.

But what does Funko do?

Funko is a purveyor of pop culture and licensed-focused collectibles company. Funko currently holds thousands of licenses and the rights to create tens of thousands of characters - one of the largest portfolios in the pop culture and collectibles industry. Funko's Pop! Vinyl is the number one stylized vinyl collectible on the market, selling millions of figures to fans around the world.

As the Sr. AI Engineer, you will lead the design, development, and operationalization of AI-powered applications, intelligent automation, and agentic solutions across Funko's enterprise technology landscape. Working closely with Digital Technology, Product, Data, and Business teams, you will translate business opportunities into secure, scalable, and production-ready AI solutions that improve employee productivity, streamline business processes, and create innovative customer experiences.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role responsible for building enterprise AI capabilities while establishing engineering best practices, reusable components, and AI development standards that enable responsible AI adoption across the organization.

What You'll Do

• Design, develop, and deploy enterprise AI solutions that solve complex business challenges and improve operational efficiency.
• Build AI-powered applications using Large Language Models (LLMs), AI agents, prompt engineering, and modern orchestration frameworks.
• Design and implement intelligent workflows, agentic architectures, and automation solutions that integrate with enterprise business systems.
• Develop production-grade AI applications using Python, APIs, cloud-native services, and modern AI development frameworks.
• Design and implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions leveraging enterprise knowledge, business data, and structured information sources.
• Build and orchestrate AI agents using modern frameworks such as LangGraph, LangChain, Semantic Kernel, CrewAI, AutoGen, n8n, or similar technologies.
• Integrate AI capabilities into enterprise platforms including Salesforce, Shopify, D365 ERP, Snowflake, AWS, Microsoft 365, and other business applications.
• Leverage Model Context Protocol (MCP) and modern tool integration patterns to securely connect AI agents with enterprise systems and workflows.
• Develop AI-powered automation that streamlines software development, business processes, documentation, and operational workflows.
• Evaluate and optimize AI applications for quality, reliability, latency, cost, safety, and production readiness.
• Implement AI observability, monitoring, evaluation, and guardrails to ensure secure and reliable production AI systems.
• Design human-in-the-loop workflows that appropriately balance automation, governance, and business controls.
• Collaborate with Product Managers, Software Engineers, Data Engineers, Security teams, and business stakeholders to identify, prioritize, and deliver high-value AI use cases.
• Serve as the technical lead for enterprise AI initiatives by establishing engineering best practices, evaluating emerging AI technologies, and creating reusable AI patterns that accelerate adoption across the organization.
• Mentor engineers through technical leadership, code reviews, and collaborative problem solving while helping grow AI engineering capabilities across Digital Technology.
• Stay current on emerging AI technologies and recommend practical innovations that create measurable business value.

What You'll Bring

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field; advanced degree is a plus.
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including at least 3+ years designing, building, and deploying production AI, machine learning, intelligent automation, or generative AI solutions in enterprise environments.
• Strong experience designing, building, and deploying AI-powered applications in production environments.
• Hands-on experience with Large Language Models (LLMs), AI agents, orchestration frameworks, prompt engineering, and agentic architectures.
• Strong proficiency in Python and experience developing scalable APIs and cloud-native applications.
• Experience integrating AI capabilities into enterprise applications, APIs, and business processes.
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
• Strong understanding of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), embeddings, semantic search, enterprise knowledge retrieval, and modern AI application patterns.
• Experience building intelligent automation and AI-driven workflow solutions.
• Experience evaluating and optimizing AI systems for performance, reliability, safety, and production deployment.
• Understanding of AI governance, security, privacy, scalability, and responsible AI best practices.
• Experience leading technical initiatives, mentoring engineers, conducting code reviews, and working within Agile software development teams.
• Strong communication, collaboration, analytical, and problem-solving skills with the ability to translate business challenges into practical AI solutions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with enterprise AI platforms or coding assistants such as ChatGPT Enterprise/Codex, Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Bugbot, or similar tools.
• Experience designing governed data access models for AI, including semantic-layer, API, MCP, or tool-based control plane approaches.
• Familiarity with Snowflake, DBT, Airflow, AWS, and enterprise identity and access patterns such as Entra/Azure AD role mapping and audit controls.
• Experience implementing AI observability, evaluation frameworks, prompt testing, guardrails, and production monitoring.
• Experience building multi-agent AI systems and agentic workflows.
• Experience integrating multiple foundation models such as OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Gemini, or open-source models into enterprise applications.
• Experience with conversational analytics, business-data AI pilots, or other AI use cases where trusted data and bounded actions are critical to adoption.
• Experience integrating AI with enterprise platforms such as Salesforce, Shopify, D365 ERP, Microsoft 365, ServiceNow, or similar SaaS ecosystems.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, DevOps, infrastructure-as-code, containerization, and modern AI deployment practices.
• Experience building AI solutions in retail, eCommerce, consumer products, manufacturing, or other enterprise business environments.

How This Role Operates

• Build production-ready AI solutions that solve meaningful business problems.
• Partner closely with Digital Technology and business stakeholders to identify and prioritize AI opportunities.
• Lead hands-on software engineering while establishing reusable AI patterns, frameworks, and engineering standards.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and recommend practical adoption strategies based on business value.
• Mentor engineers and foster AI engineering best practices across the organization.
• Balance innovation with security, governance, scalability, and operational excellence.

How Success is Measured

• Delivery of production-ready AI solutions that create measurable business value.
• Increased employee productivity through AI-powered automation and intelligent workflows.
• Successful adoption of enterprise AI capabilities across business and technology teams.
• Establishment of reusable AI engineering standards, frameworks, and components.
• Secure, scalable, reliable, and governed AI implementations.
• Continuous improvement of AI capabilities through innovation, engineering excellence, and measurable business outcomes.

Why This Role Matters

AI represents a transformational opportunity for Funko to enhance employee productivity, improve business operations, accelerate software development, and create innovative customer experiences.
The Sr. AI Engineer will play a critical role in turning AI from isolated experiments into practical, scalable business capabilities by building production-ready AI applications, intelligent automation, and enterprise integrations that deliver measurable value across the organization.

Salary Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $151,500- $181,500 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate's qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

What Funko Offers

Funko offers a competitive compensation package with full benefits and a 401(K) plan with matching contributions from the company. Most importantly, we offer a creative work environment with people who love pop culture just as much as you do. Can't wait to gush about your latest binge? Neither can we! Looking for a place where your favorite pop culture t-shirt will receive the compliments it deserves? We know how you feel!


Funko is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.

Work Environment

The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate. While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is regularly required to sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel and talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to reach with hands and arms. The employee is occasionally required to stand and walk. The employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.

This onsite position is based in our Burbank, CA or Everett, WA offices. Local candidates will be considered first.


WHAT FUNKO OFFERS

Funko offers a competitive compensation package with full benefits and a 401(K) plan with matching contributions from the company. Most importantly, we offer a creative work environment with people who love pop culture just as much as you do. Can't wait to gush about your latest binge? Neither can we! Looking for a place where your favorite pop culture t-shirt will receive the compliments it deserves? We know how you feel!


Funko is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this classification. They are not to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of personnel so classified. All personnel may be required to perform duties outside of their normal responsibilities from time to time, as needed