Freelance Forward Deployed AI Engineer (AI)

Location: European Union; fully remote with a flexible 40-hour-per-week schedule.

Company

hirify.global AI is a well-funded AI startup creating data-generation, labeling, and evaluation solutions for frontier labs, big tech companies, AI startups, enterprises, and research organizations worldwide.

What you will do

• Act as the primary technical counterpart to CTOs, VPs of Engineering and ML, research leaders, and applied AI teams.
• Diagnose client data and model-evaluation needs, understand target metrics and training strategies, and recommend evidence-based data solutions.
• Design and build data-labeling components, quality controls, user interfaces, agentic systems, RAG solutions, synthetic data workflows, and automated multi-stage pipelines for AI training and evaluation.
• Architect complex solutions end to end, run experiments, validate quality and speed, and iterate from MVP to production.
• Own delivery timelines, quality, scalability, gross margin, contribution margin, and expansion opportunities across client engagements.
• Establish reusable engineering standards and best practices while mentoring Solution Engineers and Technical Consultants.

Requirements

• Professional English at C1+ level.
• Strong understanding of modern LLM training, fine-tuning, and evaluation, including SFT, RLHF/RLAIF, DPO/PPO, reward modeling, and LoRA/PEFT.
• Experience designing complex AI solutions, building multi-stage pipelines, developing AI-driven systems, integrating APIs, and independently prototyping LLM-powered solutions.
• Working knowledge of Python, NumPy, and Pandas.
• Solid software engineering foundations, including version control, testing, MVP thinking, and iterative development.
• Exceptional discovery and problem-framing skills, including translating business or research goals into AI data and evaluation strategies.
• 8+ years delivering complex AI, ML, or data projects end to end, with experience influencing technical direction beyond individual projects.
• Ability to lead executive conversations with CTOs, VPs, and senior technical stakeholders and remain clear, structured, persuasive, and calm under pressure.
• Ownership of technical and commercial outcomes, including thoughtful trade-offs between time, cost, and quality.

Nice to have

• Experience building production software.
• Experience establishing engineering standards, mentoring engineers, or leading cross-functional technical initiatives.
• Experience at McKinsey, Bain, or BCG and/or as an applied ML or LLM engineer.
• Hands-on experience training or fine-tuning LLMs and/or building agentic systems.
• Advanced degree such as an MSc or PhD in AI, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Experience in crowdsourcing, data-centric AI, and fast-paced multi-project delivery for frontier AI clients.

Culture & Benefits

• Freelance B2B collaboration with a possible path into a project team.
• Flexible fully remote schedule of 40 hours per week.
• Work on AI development projects with leading AI companies and recognized global brands.
• Collaboration with a dedicated, dynamic, and friendly expert community.