{"id":1485267,"url":"https://alion.io/job/salt-group-senior-ai-engineer","title":"Group Senior AI Engineer","company":{"id":1935342,"name":"Salt","domain":"welovesalt.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/welovesalt","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":true,"employer_type":"agency","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":null,"truth_index":{"grade":"C","score":64,"open_postings":1440,"ghost_share":0.608,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-01T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Cape Town, South Africa"],"countries":["ZA"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":1900000,"max":null,"currency":"ZAR","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":115891},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"A/B Testing","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"LightGBM","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"Scikit-learn","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"TensorFlow","optional":false},{"name":"XGBoost","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-04-09T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-04-09","last_verified_at":"2026-09-29T22:22:26Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":null,"days_open":176,"trust":{"level":"ghost","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale","company_stale"],"days_open":175},"description":"Back to all jobs\nApplications are now closed.\nGroup Senior AI Engineer\nRef: JO-2512-357893\nSouth Africa, Cape Town \n\nData, AI and Machine Learning, Technology \n\nIT \n\n1,000 - 4,999 Employee \n\nZAR 1,900,000.00 - ZAR 2,200,000.00 per annum \n\nEnvironment:\n\nHybrid \n\nContract Type:\n\nPermanent \n\nStarts:\n\n2026-06-01 \n\nSenior AI Engineer\nLocation: Cape Town or London\nKeywords: AI Jobs, Senior ML Engineer Jobs, Generative AI Jobs, Data Jobs, MLOps Jobs\nPerks: Hybrid working, global remit, modern tech stack, actual ownership\nWho you’ll be joining\nImagine a global consumer brand with big ambitions and a huge digital footprint - think thousands of daily interactions, loads of behavioural data, and teams across multiple continents all hungry for smarter, faster, AI-powered ways of working.\nThey’re not dipping a toe into AI. They’re scaling it - responsibly, safely, and with real momentum. Which is why they need a Senior AI Engineer who can own delivery, navigate ambiguity, and raise the bar for everyone around them.\nWhat You’ll Be Doing\nThis is the senior-level version of an AI Engineer: same end-to-end ownership, but with more leadership, more influence, and bigger, messier, more rewarding problems.\nYou’ll:\nTake full technical ownership of AI systems - from prototype to production reliability.\nMake architectural calls that balance speed, stability, and long-term maintainability.\nConvert loosely defined business questions into clear AI solutions with measurable impact.\nBuild everything from classical ML models to LLM-powered services (RAG, fine-tuning, adapters, you name it).\nDeeply integrate your models into apps, CRM platforms, workflows, digital journeys, and internal tools.\nLead experiments, run A/B tests, validate hypotheses, and guide stakeholders through trade-offs.\nSet up monitoring, drift checks, retraining flows, observability, and proper MLOps hygiene.\nWork hands-on with data, modelling, pipelines, APIs, orchestration - the full engineering spectrum.\nMentor juniors, shape engineering standards, and help create reusable blueprints for future AI builds.\nAct as a champion for safe, transparent, responsible AI use.\nIf you like being the person who steps into complexity, simplifies it, owns it, and ships something solid - good news: you’ve found your people.\nWho You Are\nYou don’t need to match every bullet, but you’re likely to thrive if you’re someone who:\nHas roughly 8+ years working in ML, data science, or software engineering with real AI ownership.\nHas shipped multiple AI/ML systems into production - not just POCs.\nHas led at least one meaningful end-to-end AI initiative (technical direction + stakeholder alignment).\nIs comfortable with Python + SQL and enjoys writing clean, production-level code.\nKnows ML frameworks (scikit-learn, XGBoost, PyTorch, TensorFlow, LightGBM etc.).\nHas experience with LLMs and generative AI (APIs, RAG, evaluation, tuning).\nUnderstands data engineering basics and can work with pipelines, warehouses, and orchestration tools.\nIs familiar with the cloud (Azure, AWS, or GCP all welcome).\nNavigates ambiguity well - shaping scope instead of waiting for it.\nCommunicates clearly, especially with non-technical stakeholders.\nLoves mentoring, pair programming, reviewing code, and raising team standards.\nUnderstands privacy, safety, and the need for responsible AI.\nValues outcomes over grand ideas.\nYou don’t need to be a researcher. You don’t need a PhD. You need to be someone who ships.\nWhy This Role Matters\nThis team isn’t building novelty demos. They’re deploying AI into live products across multiple regions. Your work will touch real customers, improve real operations, and directly influence commercial performance.\nYou’ll get to:\nLead high-impact AI projects from idea to production.\nOwn the technical design and operational reality of what you ship.\nBuild reusable components that become the backbone of future AI work.\nWork with friendly, curious, low-ego teammates.\nPlay a key role in shaping the AI roadmap across a global market footprint.\nAnd yes - you’ll still get space to experiment, learn, and stay ahead of where the field is going.\nSalt is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4196,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"South Africa","iso":"ZA","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-29T22:15:35Z"}],"liveness":{"score":6,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.202,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":175,"expected_fill_days":47,"reasons":["conf:31","agency","stale_co","urgency","velocity","ghost","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-01T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":115891,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/salt-group-senior-ai-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/salt-group-senior-ai-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-02T02:56:16Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":3977,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":1023,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-03T00:00:00Z"}}}