{"id":860540,"url":"https://alion.io/job/next-data-senior-ai-platform-engineer-contract","title":"Senior AI Platform Engineer Contract","company":{"id":680653,"name":"Nextdata","domain":"nextdata.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/next-data","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":3,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-11-07T05:47:08Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"contractor","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":161000,"max_usd":310000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":1332},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Function Calling","optional":false},{"name":"LangChain","optional":false},{"name":"LangGraph","optional":false},{"name":"Model Context Protocol","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"Semantic Search","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":true},{"name":"DuckDB","optional":true},{"name":"Google BigQuery","optional":true},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":true},{"name":"Snowflake","optional":true},{"name":"Spark","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-16T18:26:47Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-16","last_verified_at":"2026-11-08T01:43:34Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":114,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":113},"description":"Nextdata is looking for an experienced AI Platform Engineer for an initial three-month project focused on building and validating an AI-enabled data platform capability.\nThis is a hands-on implementation role. You will quickly ramp up on an existing project and build backend services, agent tools, APIs, and data integrations. The role has no customer-facing responsibilities and less emphasis on architecture than a principal-level position.\nIf successful, the project may continue and develop into a broader Nextdata product.\nWhat You’ll Do\nQuickly understand the existing codebase, requirements, and technical direction.\n\nBuild backend services, AI agents, tools, and APIs for governed data access.\n\nImplement MCP-compatible endpoints or similar agent interfaces.\n\nIntegrate SQL, documents, APIs, metadata, semantic models, and vector search.\n\nBuild retrieval, tool selection, context construction, and grounded response flows.\n\nAdd access controls, policy enforcement, audit logging, tests, and observability.\n\nDeliver a reliable, documented system within the three-month project scope.\n\nWhat We’re Looking For\nStrong experience with backend systems, data platforms, or distributed systems.\n\nPractical experience building agentic AI applications using LangChain, LangGraph, or similar frameworks.\n\nExperience with RAG, retrieval, semantic search, tool calling, and multi-step agent workflows.\n\nStrong Python and API development skills.\n\nExperience with SQL, documents, metadata systems, and vector search.\n\nFamiliarity with MCP or similar agent interfaces.\n\nUnderstanding of access control, policies, lineage, data quality, PII protection, and auditability.\n\nAbility to become productive quickly in an unfamiliar codebase.\n\nGood judgment on scope, trade-offs, and production readiness.\n\nNice to Have\nExperience with data products, data mesh, semantic models, catalogs, or governance platforms.\n\nExperience with MCP servers, tool registries, or multi-step agents.\n\nExperience with Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, Spark, DuckDB, Postgres, graph databases, or vector databases.\n\nFamiliarity with OAuth, OIDC, SAML, SSO, RBAC, ABAC, SCIM, or policy engines.\n\nExperience evaluating retrieval quality, tool accuracy, groundedness, and failure modes.\n\nContract Scope\nInitial term: three to four months.\n\nFocus: hands-on implementation and delivery.\n\nNo customer-facing responsibilities.\n\nPotential extension if the project is successful.","description_format":"text","description_chars":2436,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["AI Agents","Data Engineering & Migration Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-13T09:44:21Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":11,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.404,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":113,"expected_fill_days":36,"reasons":["conf:0","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-07T05:47:08Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/next-data-senior-ai-platform-engineer-contract","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/next-data-senior-ai-platform-engineer-contract.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-08T04:08:02Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":8868,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-09T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":680653},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=680653"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fnext-data-senior-ai-platform-engineer-contract"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fnext-data-senior-ai-platform-engineer-contract"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fnext-data-senior-ai-platform-engineer-contract"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/next-data-senior-ai-platform-engineer-contract\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fnext-data-senior-ai-platform-engineer-contract"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":860540}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"nextdata.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":860540},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. Docs: https://alion.io/developers"}}