Senior Applied AI Engineer

Summary

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP is looking for a Senior Applied AI Engineer.  Willkie is an elite international law firm of approximately 1,300 lawyers located in 16 offices in six countries. 

The Senior Applied AI Engineer will be responsible for building, deploying, and supporting enterprise generative AI applications and AI-enabled workflows. The role will work closely with the Lead Applied AI Architect and other engineering, data, security, and business teams to translate solution designs into secure, scalable, and maintainable applications. The successful candidate will have experience with Python, .NET/C#, AI application development, and Microsoft Azure. 

At Willkie, we believe great people are the key to our success. We are offering a highly competitive compensation package with exceptional benefits. If you are looking to work in a friendly, collaborative environment that affords unique opportunities to expand your professional development, this role is for you.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain AI-powered applications, agents, chatbots, and workflow automation using Python and .NET/C#.
• Build RAG and knowledge-grounded solutions, including document ingestion, embeddings, retrieval, search, and response generation.
• Integrate applications with AI platforms such as OpenAI, Azure OpenAI/Microsoft Foundry, Anthropic, or similar technologies.
• Build agentic integrations using tool calling, APIs, enterprise services, and patterns such as Model Context Protocol (MCP).
• Develop reusable APIs, services, connectors, and application components.
• Integrate solutions with SQL databases, Azure Cosmos DB, vector search, enterprise applications, and document repositories.
• Develop and deploy applications using Azure App Service, Container Apps, Functions, Key Vault, Application Insights, API Management, and related services.
• Implement AI-specific testing and evaluation for response quality, retrieval quality, grounding, and tool/agent behavior.
• Monitor and optimize applications for accuracy, latency, reliability, token usage, API/model constraints, and cost.
• Participate in technical design, code reviews, CI/CD, troubleshooting, documentation, and production support.
• Collaborate with technical and business teams and contribute to prototypes and emerging AI initiatives.

Qualifications

• Strong professional development experience with .NET/C# and modern application development practices.
• Strong working knowledge of Python for AI development, integration, data processing, or evaluation.
• Hands-on experience building generative AI applications, including RAG, agents, chatbots, or AI-enabled workflows.
• Experience with platforms such as OpenAI, Azure OpenAI/Microsoft Foundry, Anthropic, or comparable technologies.
• Understanding of LLM concepts including prompting, structured outputs, embeddings, retrieval, grounding, and tool calling.
• Experience with APIs, agentic workflows, and enterprise system integrations; familiarity with MCP is preferred.
• Strong experience with SQL and relational databases and working knowledge of NoSQL platforms such as Azure Cosmos DB.
• Familiarity with vector, semantic, and hybrid search technologies.
• Experience developing and deploying applications in Microsoft Azure, including application hosting, containers, serverless services, identity, secrets, and monitoring.
• Familiarity with generative AI evaluation and testing approaches.
• Understanding of production AI considerations such as latency, token usage, context limits, scalability, reliability, and cost.
• Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to understand business needs, translate them into practical technical solutions, and independently deliver bespoke AI solutions within established architecture and engineering standards.
• Strong software engineering, troubleshooting, collaboration, and documentation skills.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with OpenAI Agents SDK, Microsoft Agent Framework, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, LangChain, LangGraph, or similar orchestration libraries.
• Experience with agentic workflows, multi-agent systems, function calling, tool integration, or MCP.
• Experience with Snowflake, Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, or Dataverse.
• Familiarity with Azure Functions, Container Apps, API Management, Key Vault, Service Bus, Application Insights, and Microsoft Entra ID.
• Working knowledge of Python for AI prototyping, evaluation, or data processing.
• Experience with document extraction, OCR, or Azure AI Document Intelligence.
• Familiarity with AI evaluation, observability, prompt injection risks, data protection, and responsible AI practices.
• Experience optimizing AI solutions for accuracy, latency, scalability, and cost.

ADA Requirements

• Ability to sit at a desk most of the working day and walk short distances
• Needs manual dexterity, speed and accuracy in handling office equipment
• Ability to work efficiently and accurately in an atmosphere of frequent interruption
• Ability to work in close proximity to other individuals
• Ability to carry light to moderate objects, e.g., files, small objects and supplies a short distance

Employment Status

• Exempt

Pay Range

Pay Range Statement

The salary range for this role represents the Firm’s good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible compensation at the time of posting. Actual compensation will be dependent upon a number of factors, including but not limited to, the candidate’s relevant experience, qualifications and location.

EEO Statement

Willkie Farr & Gallagher is an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon actual or perceived: race (including hair texture, protective hairstyles and other traits associated with race), color, age, religious creed, citizenship, citizenship status and alienage, nationality, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity or creed, disability, genetic information or medical condition, reproductive health decision making, pregnancy or maternity, paternity, marital or civil partnership status, caregiver status, gender (including gender identity, expression, nonconformity, gender reassignment or status as a transgender individual), sex, sexual orientation or preference, veteran or military status, height, weight, any other characteristic protected by law or any combination thereof. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let the hiring manager know.

California Applicants

Pursuant to the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance (FCIHO) and the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicant with arrest and conviction records.