Lead AI Engineer (remote work from Kazakhstan)

Location: Remote or hybrid, based in Kazakhstan; Almaty office available. Remote work from anywhere in Kazakhstan is supported.

Company

EPAM Kazakhstan delivers enterprise software engineering and AI solutions for clients through distributed engineering teams.

What you will do

• Lead the technical vision, architecture, and implementation of scalable enterprise AI applications, including multi-agent workflows, custom search engines, and end-to-end AI systems.
• Translate client and business goals into technical roadmaps and recommend feasible, high-impact LLM solutions.
• Set engineering standards for code quality, architecture, data pipelines, prompt management, and automated evaluation.
• Lead design reviews, development practices, mentorship, and team performance initiatives.
• Guide R&D, prototype emerging models, and standardize Generative AI tools and frameworks.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in Lead, Principal, or Senior AI/Software Engineering roles, including architecting and shipping complex production-grade AI or ML solutions.
• At least 1 year of relevant leadership experience.
• Master-level Python proficiency, specifically FastAPI or equivalent web frameworks, with strong NLP fundamentals including semantic similarity, tokenization, NER, and text classification.
• Expertise in Generative AI patterns, particularly RAG, autonomous multi-agent networks, and tool integration.
• Production experience with OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, or Gemini APIs and orchestration tools such as LangGraph or LlamaIndex.
• Experience optimizing AI applications for performance, security, prompt-injection mitigation, data privacy, cloud costs, and programmatic or LLM-as-a-judge evaluation.
• Ability to build intuitive UI/UX prototypes with Streamlit, Gradio, or equivalent tools.
• Strong leadership and communication skills, including presenting technical architectures to executives and clients.
• Strong English communication skills at B2 level or higher.

Culture & Benefits

• Remote or hybrid work from Kazakhstan, with the option to work abroad for up to two months per year.
• Relocation opportunities within offices in 55+ countries.
• Leadership development, career advising, soft-skills, and well-being programs.
• Certifications including GCP, Azure, and AWS, unlimited access to EPAM's internal learning database, and free English classes.
• Medical and family care package, six trust days per year, corporate and social events, and benefits for sports, stores, and services.
• Housing support through preferential mortgage access via the Otbasy Bank partnership.