AI/ML Engineer- SDE 1

🚀 About Thrifty AI

We're building AI employees that can see, hear, speak, reason, and take action. Thrifty AI builds artificial humans and agentic AI systems for enterprises and government organizations. Our work spans real-time AI avatars, voice AI, LLM-powered agents, and autonomous workflows that operate across digital and physical environments. We're backed by Google for Startups, supported by India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and part of NVIDIA Inception. We're a hands-on engineering team working to turn advances in AI into reliable systems that work in production.

📐 About the role

We’re looking for an AI/ML Engineer (SDE I) who is eager to build practical AI applications using Large Language Models (LLMs), AI agents, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and modern AI frameworks. In this role, you’ll work closely with experienced engineers, product teams, and founders to develop, test, and improve AI-powered solutions for real-world business problems. You’ll contribute to the development of intelligent applications, integrate LLMs with backend services and APIs, and help turn ideas and prototypes into reliable, usable products. This is an opportunity for an engineer who enjoys hands-on development, learning new AI technologies, and solving problems through experimentation and implementation. You should have a strong foundation in programming, a genuine interest in applied AI, and practical exposure to building AI-powered projects through professional experience, internships, research, hackathons, or personal projects. We value your ability to learn quickly, write clean code, take ownership of assigned tasks, and collaborate with the team to deliver meaningful results.

🦸🏻‍♀️ What you’ll do

• Build AI-powered applications using LLMs, AI frameworks, and modern development tools.
• Develop AI agents and tool-calling workflows to solve real-world problems.
• Implement RAG pipelines to connect LLMs with relevant data and knowledge sources.
• Write clean, maintainable Python code and develop APIs to integrate AI capabilities into applications.
• Work with backend services, databases, and external APIs to support AI-driven features.
• Experiment with prompts, test AI outputs, and improve the accuracy and reliability of AI applications.
• Assist in deploying, debugging, and monitoring AI applications in development and production environments.
• Collaborate with senior engineers, product teams, and founders to build, test, and deliver AI features.
• Troubleshoot issues, learn new AI technologies, and contribute to continuously improving existing systems.
• Take ownership of assigned tasks and deliver well-tested solutions with guidance from experienced team members.

⭐️ What we're looking for

• 1–3 years of experience in AI/ML engineering
• Strong Python programming skills
• Experience building LLM-based applications or AI agents
• Understanding of:
• RAG architectures
• Vector databases and embeddings
• Prompt engineering
• Tool calling and function calling
• Multi-agent workflows
• Experience with one or more:
• o Lang Chain
• o Lang Graph
• o Crew AI
• o AutoGen
• o Llama Index
• o OpenAI APIs
• o Hugging Face
• Experience building APIs using Fast API or similar frameworks
• Strong debugging and problem-solving skills
• Ability to learn quickly and work independently

The Experience at Thrifty AI

At Thrifty AI, you’ll work in a fast-paced, product-driven environment where ownership, innovation, and execution matter. You’ll build real-world AI solutions, collaborate directly with founders and engineers, and take meaningful responsibility from day one. We value curious minds, fast learners, clear communication, and people who turn ideas into impactful products. With a collaborative culture, cutting-edge AI exposure, competitive compensation, ESOP opportunities, paid leaves, and work-from-home flexibility, you’ll have the opportunity to learn, grow, and make a real impact as we scale.