Staff AI Engineer
Slang
Software Engineering, Data Science
New York, NY, USA
Posted on Jan 26, 2025
Company Summary:
Slang.ai is redefining customer engagement through conversational AI, making every interaction seamless and efficient. Our mission is to transform the restaurant industry by providing the ultimate voice AI solution for consistently outstanding customer experiences. At Slang.ai, we foster a culture of innovation, inclusivity, and growth, ensuring that every "Slangsta" (employee) feels valued and connected to our broader AI driven impact.
What Your Experience Will Be:
At Slang you would be our only Staff AI Engineer on our team driving the development of our conversational AI solutions for full-service restaurants. In this role, you’ll work at the intersection of machine learning, software engineering, and conversation design to create delightful customer experiences. You will be reporting directly to the VP of Engineering.
This role has high impact technical leadership responsibilities. You’ll mentor our engineering team (~10 people) in AI development practices and guide them in building AI-powered features. You’ll also work closely with a core team of 3-4 engineers focused specifically on advancing our conversational AI platform.
Why You Belong Here & How You Will Grow:
At Slang.ai, you believe that trust is a foundational layer to any relationship starting internally and through your touch points with each prospect. We cultivate a culture where every Slangster has a deep sense of pride in their achievements with humility.
Learner Fervor represents our strongest attribute for growth, as we challenge each employee to take every opportunity to learn especially when it's hard. You will grow not only as a professional but also as an individual. We will help your journey in finding purpose in your work and achieving your fullest potential.
At Slang Engineering, we cultivate a space where everyone can dream big, own their impact, and innovate boldly – all while having fun and supporting each other along the way. We put an emphasis on collaboration, and while we are split into small teams with different responsibilities and ownership.
We engage in hack-a-thons to allow people to find time to bring real innovation, unchained from our day-to-day work and priorities, and we strive to allocate 10% of our time to doing that.
What success looks like
- Lead the development and optimization of our conversational AI systems, working closely with conversation designers to implement solutions that address user pain points and enhance customer experience
- Design, implement, and maintain AI agent workflows using modern machine learning techniques and best practices
- Drive technical excellence by mentoring team members on AI engineering best practices and keeping the team updated on relevant industry developments
- Conduct and analyze A/B/N tests, or use causal methodologies to validate changes and improvements to our AI systems
- Evaluate and implement tools and systems for monitoring AI performance and detecting issues in production
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define and implement new features and capabilities
- Stay current with the latest developments in AI/ML, particularly in areas relevant to conversational AI and large language models
Key outcomes
- Continuously enhance our conversational AI platform’s capabilities.
- Achieve measurable improvements in guest satisfaction and conversation completion rates
- Maintain robust monitoring and optimization frameworks for AI system performance
- Enable engineers to independently develop and deploy LLM-based solutions
- Create practical training programs and documentation for AI/ML best practices
- Demonstrate team's increased velocity and confidence in shipping AI features
What you will bring
- You have at least 7+ years in software engineering, 5+ (inclusive is fine) in ML domain, 2+ with LLMs
- BS/MS in computer Science or related field
- Experience shipping production conversational AI systems
- Have shipped products with LLMs in production and seen issues with guardrails, performance and cost
- Have used methods for validating success like A/B/N testing and/or causal inference
- Ability to think strategically and creatively about product, tech debt, and performance / complexity / cost trade-offs
- Excellent communication skills, especially with non-technical stakeholders
- A desire to mentor engineers
- Pro-activity and ability to not only build end-to-end solutions yourself, but also lead a team to do so
- Experience with voice/telephone AI systems
- Background in restaurant/hospitality tech
- Track record of building and leading engineering teams
- Published research or contributions to AI/ML community
How Work Affects My Life:
Working as a Senior AI Engineer at Slang Engineering will offer a unique opportunity to contribute to the advancement of conversational AI technology. Through their work on developing and optimizing AI systems, the successful candidate will gain a deeper understanding of the capabilities and limitations of AI, as well as the ethical considerations surrounding its use. This experience will broaden their perspective on the potential impact of AI on society and shape their worldview accordingly.
Slang Engineering's emphasis on innovation, collaboration, and personal growth aligns with the values of a talented and ambitious AI engineer. The company's commitment to providing employees with opportunities for professional development and the freedom to explore new ideas demonstrates its recognition of the value of its employees and their contributions. By joining Slang Engineering, the successful candidate will find an environment where their skills and expertise are valued, and where they can make a meaningful impact on the future of conversational AI.
Our Vision
Calling a business shouldn’t feel like a robot-hostage situation, where you’re forced to listen to horrible music and can't reach a human, while enduring a soulless voice uttering "I'm sorry I didn't quite get that" on repeat for eternity. (shudder) That’s why we started Slang.ai. We use the latest AI and audio wizardry to make transacting via voice so enjoyable it’s more human than human. By 2030, we will save businesses and consumers 1 billion minutes of precious time while transforming voice channels into the preferred mode of communication (it's faster and easier than text).
We have backgrounds building product at companies like Spotify, Buzzfeed, the New York Times, and OpenTable —shipping experiences that have reached hundreds of millions of users. Now, we’re using our backgrounds to start a new culture, one that puts product and human-centered design above all else while fostering constant learning and growth. Sound like something you’d like to be part of? Get on board.
Our Values
Overachiever Fever. We’re overachievers (we don’t know any other way)
Learner Fervor. We take every opportunity to learn (especially when it’s hard)
Humility Ability. We approach each other with curiosity and openness (know-it-alls not welcome!)
SMB MVP. We’re an expert member of our customers’ teams (we earn their trust)
