Developer – AI Engineering

Developer – AI Engineering Department: Information Technology / Development Reports To: Chief Development Officer Employment Type: Full-Time In-Office Only: Pensacola Position Summary We are a forward-thinking law firm focused on leveraging technology, artificial intelligence, and automation to create greater efficiency across our practice areas and business operations. As our firm continues to grow and adopt new technologies, we are seeking a Developer – AI Engineering to help identify, design, and build innovative solutions that improve how legal work gets done. This role will be instrumental in developing AI-powered tools and applications that streamline legal workflows, reduce repetitive administrative work, improve access to information, enhance client service, and allow our attorneys and legal teams to focus their time on higher-value work. The Developer – AI Engineering will design, build, integrate, and maintain software solutions using artificial intelligence, generative AI, large language models (LLMs), automation, APIs, and data integrations. The position will work directly with attorneys, litigation teams, operations, and IT to understand existing processes, identify inefficiencies, and translate real-world legal and operational challenges into practical technology solutions. We are looking for a builder and problem-solver who is excited about applying emerging AI technologies in a real-world legal environment. The ideal candidate understands that successful AI implementation is not simply about adopting the newest technology—it is about identifying where technology can make our practice faster, smarter, more consistent, scalable, and efficient while maintaining the confidentiality, security, accuracy, and professional standards required of a law firm. This position will have the opportunity to help shape how our firm uses AI and emerging technology across its practice areas and to play a meaningful role in the firm's continued innovation and growth. The Developer – AI Engineering will work closely with IT, operations, business leaders, and end users to identify opportunities where AI can meaningfully improve efficiency and quality while maintaining appropriate standards for security, privacy, accuracy, and human oversight. Essential Duties and Responsibilities AI Engineering & Development Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain AI-enabled applications, tools, and internal systems.Build solutions using generative AI and large language models, including commercially available and open-source models.Develop AI agents and agentic workflows capable of performing multi-step business processes using approved tools and data sources.Implement techniques such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), structured outputs, tool/function calling, prompt engineering, embeddings, and semantic search.Develop reusable AI services, APIs, integrations, and application components.Evaluate AI models and platforms based on accuracy, reliability, security, performance, scalability, and cost.Build evaluation and testing frameworks to measure AI output quality and identify regressions, hallucinations, or other performance issues.Monitor AI applications in production and continuously improve their reliability and effectiveness.Software Development & Integration Develop and maintain web applications, backend services, APIs, scripts, and automation solutions.Integrate AI capabilities with existing business applications, databases, document repositories, communication platforms, and third-party systems.Design reliable workflows for moving structured and unstructured information between systems.Write clean, maintainable, well-documented, and testable code.Troubleshoot application, integration, data, and performance issues.Participate in code reviews and maintain appropriate source-control and software-development practices.Support deployment, monitoring, logging, versioning, and ongoing maintenance of internally developed applications.Automation & Business Process Improvement Partner with departments to identify repetitive, manual, or high-volume processes that can be improved through software, automation, or AI.Translate business requirements into technical specifications and working solutions.Develop prototypes and proof-of-concept applications to evaluate new ideas quickly.Automate document review, information extraction, classification, summarization, routing, research, reporting, and other appropriate business processes.Measure the effectiveness of implemented solutions, including time savings, accuracy, adoption, cost, and business impact.Recommend when traditional software or automation is more appropriate than an AI-based solution.Data, Security & Responsible AI Ensure AI applications comply with organizational requirements for confidentiality, cybersecurity, privacy, and data governance.Design solutions that appropriately protect confidential, proprietary, employee, and client information.Implement access controls, logging, monitoring, validation, and human-review mechanisms where appropriate.Minimize unnecessary exposure of sensitive information to third-party AI platforms.Help establish technical standards and best practices for the responsible use of AI.Identify potential risks involving hallucinations, bias, prompt injection, data leakage, unauthorized access, or inappropriate automation and implement appropriate safeguards.Maintain documentation regarding AI systems, data sources, integrations, permissions, and operational dependencies. Qualifications Required Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, Data Science, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.3-7 years of experienceIn-Office Position | Pensacola AreaProfessional software development experience building and maintaining production applications.Strong programming skills in Python and experience with at least one additional modern programming language or framework.Experience developing and consuming REST APIs and integrating third-party applications.Experience working with relational databases and SQL.Experience with Git or another source-control platform.Working knowledge of cloud-based application development and deployment.Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills.Ability to translate non-technical business needs into practical technical solutions.Strong written and verbal communication skills. AI Engineering Experience Candidates should have hands-on experience with several of the following: Large language models and generative AI platformsLLM APIs and model integrationPrompt and context engineeringRetrieval-augmented generation (RAG)Embeddings and vector databasesSemantic searchAI agents and tool/function callingStructured data extractionAI evaluation and testingModel monitoring and observabilityWorkflow automationDocument processingNatural language processingAI application security and guardrails3-7 years of experience Preferred Qualifications Experience with Microsoft Azure, Azure AI services, Azure OpenAI, or Microsoft 365 integrations.Experience developing applications using modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks.Experience with containerization technologies such as Docker.Experience with CI/CD pipelines and automated testing.Experience with vector databases or search platforms.Experience designing enterprise RAG architectures.Experience with agent orchestration frameworks or building custom agentic systems.Experience integrating AI with Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, document-management systems, CRM platforms, or other enterprise applications.Experience developing solutions in a highly regulated or confidentiality-sensitive environment.Experience in the legal industry, professional services, or another data-intensive business environment is a plus. Knowledge, Skills & Abilities The successful candidate will demonstrate: Strong software engineering fundamentals combined with curiosity about emerging AI technologies.A practical approach to AI—focused on solving business problems rather than implementing AI simply because it is available.Ability to rapidly learn and evaluate new technologies.Strong problem-solving and debugging abilities.Ability to independently manage projects from concept through production deployment.Attention to detail and commitment to producing reliable solutions.Ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.Sound judgment when working with confidential or sensitive information.Ability to balance speed of innovation with security, reliability, and maintainability.Strong collaboration skills and the ability to work across multiple departments and levels of the organization. Key Measures of Success Success in this position will be measured by the ability to: Deliver reliable AI and software solutions that solve meaningful business problems.Reduce manual work and improve operational efficiency.Develop applications that employees can easily adopt and use.Maintain appropriate levels of accuracy, security, and reliability.Move successful prototypes into stable production solutions.Demonstrate measurable business value from AI initiatives.Maintain clear documentation and sustainable development practices.Keep the organization informed about emerging AI capabilities, risks, and opportunities. Work Environment This position operates in a professional, technology-driven environment and requires regular collaboration with technical and non-technical teams. The role may involve managing multiple development initiatives simultaneously and responding to changing business priorities. Because the position may have access to confidential business and client information, the Developer – AI Engineering must exercise a high degree of discretion and comply with all organizational information-security, privacy, and confidentiality requirements.