AI/ML Engineering Lead

Position: AI/ML Engineering Lead (B2B / Freelancer Contract) Location: Remote open to candidates based in the European Union, Serbia, or Moldova Role Overview We are recruiting on behalf of our client for an experienced AI/ML Engineering Lead to join their Agentic AI Factory, where you will guide a high-performing team of AI Solutions Engineers in designing, delivering, and scaling state-of-the-art Agentic AI solutions. Reporting directly to the Factory Manager, you will coordinate technical direction, best practices, and team resources, fostering a culture of innovation and technical excellence. This is a hands-on leadership role that combines strategic oversight with practical involvement in architecture, development, and deployment of AI systems. You will serve as the teams primary technical point of reference, ensuring projects are delivered to the highest standards of scalability, reliability, and responsible AI compliance. Key Responsibilities Allocate engineering resources effectively to balance workload, meet delivery deadlines, and ensure optimal business impact. Oversee the technical design, architecture, and code quality of AI solutions, ensuring compliance with standards for scalability, security, and responsible AI. Act as the main escalation point for complex engineering issues, providing technical guidance and hands-on problem resolution. Maintain active technical involvement in key projects, including prototyping, modeling, integration, and deployment of AI solutions. Collaborate with product owners, project managers, and business stakeholders to translate business needs into actionable technical requirements. Support prioritization of AI use cases, assess technical feasibility, and plan resource allocation across the engineering function. Foster continuous improvement in engineering practices, covering DevOps/MLOps, prompt engineering, model optimization, and cloud deployment workflows. Lead the development of reusable components, frameworks, and best practices to accelerate AI solution delivery within the organization. Drive operationalization of AI systems, ensuring robust integration with enterprise applications (CRM, ERP, HRIS, etc.) and reliable performance in production environments. Oversee adherence to security, privacy, and responsible AI regulations across all deployed solutions. Cultivate knowledge sharing, code quality, and collaboration within the engineering team. Participate in recruitment, onboarding, and performance evaluation of AI Solutions Engineers. Stay current with advancements in agentic AI, large language models (LLMs), semantic search, and cloud technologies, ensuring timely adoption of relevant innovations. Provide clear documentation, progress reports, and technical communication to leadership and cross-functional stakeholders. Required Skills & Experience Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related field. 5-10 years of experience in AI/ML engineering or software development, including at least 1-2 years in a leadership or team lead role. Strong leadership and team development capabilities, with proven success managing or mentoring engineering teams. Advanced technical expertise in artificial intelligence, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and prompt engineering. Deep proficiency in Python and major AI/ML libraries, with experience integrating APIs in enterprise environments. Demonstrated experience designing, deploying, and scaling AI models and agent frameworks (LLMs/SLMs) with measurable business impact. Practical experience with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, or GCP) and DevOps/MLOps tools for model lifecycle management. Understanding of data pipelines, vector databases, and semantic search technologies. Proven track record implementing secure, compliant, and production-grade AI solutions (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.). Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to balance innovation and stability. Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, capable of bridging the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders. Demonstrated experience leading agile, project-based engineering teams in fast-paced environments. Excellent command of English, both written and spoken. Preferred Qualifications Certifications in AI or cloud platforms (e.g., Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate, AWS Machine Learning Specialty, or similar). Experience delivering agentic AI or LLM-based enterprise solutions. Background in AI/ML model optimization, fine-tuning, and deployment using MLOps pipelines. Experience establishing engineering standards, reusable frameworks, or accelerators for AI delivery. Strong mentoring and coaching skills with a passion for developing high-performing teams. Contract Type Engagement Model: B2B / Freelancer Location: Fully Remote (EU, Serbia, or Moldova)