Lead AI Engineer

Lead AI Engineer

Charlotte, NC

Type: Contract-to-Hire

Category: Development

Industry: Communications

Reference ID: JN -082026-108270

Date Posted: 08/12/2026

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Description:

Hybrid 4/1 in Charlotte, NC

Our client seeks a Lead AI Engineer to guide IVR and conversational AI initiatives and to design scalable LLM and NLP solutions for high-volume customer interactions. The role will drive architecture, best practices, and innovation across voice AI systems while contributing as an individual contributor and mentoring a distributed team.

This is a contract to hire opportunity. Applicants must be willing and able to work on a w2 basis and convert to FTE following contract duration. For our w2 consultants, we offer a great benefits package that includes Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits, 401k with company matching, and life insurance.

Rate: $70.00 to $80.00/hr. w2

Responsibilities:

• Architect and develop AI-driven IVR and conversational systems using Python.

• Build NLP models for text classification and clustering to support intent detection and call routing.

• Perform data analysis using SQL on large-scale IVR and interaction datasets.

• Design and deploy LLM workflows, including prompt engineering, RAG, and evaluation for voice and chat use cases.

• Lead development of agentic AI workflows for multi-step customer interactions.

• Establish LLMOps best practices for monitoring, evaluation, and lifecycle management.

• Partner with IVR platform, speech engineering, and product teams.

• Mentor offshore and junior AI engineers.

Experience Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience in AI and ML with pre-LLM era exposure.

• Strong proficiency in Python.

• Proven expertise in NLP, including text classification and clustering.

• Strong experience in data analysis using SQL.

• Hands-on experience with LLMs, including prompt engineering, evaluation frameworks, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation.

• Good to have: experience with agentic AI and multi-agent orchestration.

• Good to have: experience with LLMOps or MLOps in production environments.

• Good to have: familiarity with IVR platforms and speech technologies such as ASR, NLU, and TTS.

• Tools and libraries: NumPy, Pandas, Scikit-learn, XGBoost, spaCy, Hugging Face Transformers, NLTK, Sentence-Transformers, LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenAI SDK, LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, Oracle, MySQL, SQLAlchemy, FAISS, Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant, MLflow, Weights & Biases, BentoML, Airflow.

Recruitment Transparency Notice

Eliassen Group values transparency in our recruitment practices. Please be advised that Eliassen Group utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) tools as part of its initial application screening and hiring process. You may receive email and SMS notifications from the Eliassen Virtual Recruiting Team ( View email address on click.appcast.io , View phone number on click.appcast.io) inviting you to complete a brief voice screening as part of your application process. These tools assist our hiring teams in different ways, including but not limited to, assistance in reviewing application materials to help identify candidates whose qualifications most closely match the requirements of the position. All AI-assisted evaluations and responses are reviewed by human recruiters before any hiring decisions are made. The use of AI in our process is intended to support fairness, efficiency, and consistency, and Eliassen Group takes measures to prevent bias or discrimination in connection with its hiring practices. By proceeding, you acknowledge, agree, and consent to Eliassen Group's use of these tools, including AI tools, as part of the application and hiring process.

Skills, experience, and other compensable factors will be considered when determining pay rate. The pay range provided in this posting reflects a W2 hourly rate; other employment options may be available that may result in pay outside of the provided range.

W2 employees of Eliassen Group who are regularly scheduled to work 30 or more hours per week are eligible for the following benefits: medical (choice of 3 plans), dental, vision, pre-tax accounts, other voluntary benefits including life and disability insurance, 401(k) with match, and sick time if required by law in the worked-in state/locality.

If anyone reaches out to you about an open position connected with Eliassen Group, please ensure that you are working directly with us by confirming the following:

· When you work with Eliassen Group, all email communication will come from an Eliassen.com address, never Gmail, Yahoo, etc.

· Eliassen Group will never ask you for personal information (home address, bank account, or check routing number) until you have worked with someone clearly associated with Eliassen Group.

If you have any indication of fraudulent activity, please contact View email address on click.appcast.io .

About Eliassen Group:

Eliassen Group is a strategic consulting firm that helps organizations reach further and achieve more through our technology, business advisory, and life sciences solutions. For nearly 40 years, we have combined exceptional people, deep domain expertise, and intelligent capabilities to expand our clients' capacity and accelerate meaningful outcomes. We are driven by a purpose to positively impact the lives of our employees, clients, consultants, and the communities we serve.

Eliassen is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team from a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We are an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer and all employment decisions are based on merit, performance, and business needs. Eliassen does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender identity or expression, sexual preference or orientation, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), marital status, creed, religion, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, age, ancestry, national origin, citizenship status, prohibited criminal record inquiries of applicants and employees, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local laws.

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