Senior AI Engineer
The Judge Group
Software Engineering, Data Science
Mesquite, TX, USA
Senior AI Engineer
Location: Mesquite, TX 75150 (1 days per week onsite/4 days work from home)
Employment Type: Full‑time
EMAIL RESUMES TO DAVID KELLOGG AT – dkellogg@judge.com
About the Company
1000Bulbs.com is a $200M annual‑revenue eCommerce company specializing in lighting products for contractors, distributors, and consumers. The platform is a hybrid B2B/B2C system built on Oracle NetSuite ERP and a custom web application. The company is transitioning from a Rails/PHP monolith to a modern, multi‑tier, AI‑driven architecture.
Role Overview
We are hiring two Senior AI Engineers to modernize our eCommerce platform and build AI‑driven features. You will lead teams of AI developer agents, own full vertical slices of the stack, and deliver incremental business value using the Strangler Fig pattern. Both hires operate at equal seniority with full ownership expectations.
Key Responsibilities
Platform Modernization (50%)
- Modernize the existing Rails/PHP platform using the Strangler Fig pattern
- Deliver continuous, incremental value without big‑bang cutovers
- Own full vertical slices: React frontend, API layer, business logic, persistence, and database
- Enforce clean separation of concerns across all tiers
- Direct AI developer agents (analyst, architect, PM, developer agents) from concept to production
- Review and correct AI‑generated output for SOLID/DRY violations and poor test design
- Recommend frameworks and tools using SCIPAB‑format rationale
AI‑Driven Features (30%)
- Design and implement AI‑powered eCommerce capabilities (search, recommendations, catalog intelligence)
- Contribute to a plug‑in framework enabling governed feature development by external teams
- Evaluate AI orchestration tools and APIs with documented pros/cons
Engineering Excellence (20%)
- Design CI/CD pipelines for all features (testing, deployment, observability)
- Participate in one‑week Scrum sprints, including planning, standups, reviews, and retrospectives
- Work across both new development and maintenance with no team hierarchy
- Demonstrate Amazon Leadership Principles in daily work
Required Qualifications
- Strong portfolio demonstrating multi‑tier, 12‑factor applications built with AI developer agents
- Experience directing AI agent teams end‑to‑end
- Ability to identify and correct AI‑generated SOLID/DRY violations and poor test design
- Expert full‑stack capability: React, modern backend framework, REST/GraphQL APIs, relational databases, AWS
- Strong architectural judgment and ability to defend recommendations
- Experience modernizing live systems using the Strangler Fig pattern
- Hands‑on CI/CD pipeline design experience
- Clear, evidence‑based communication; camera‑on participation for virtual meetings
- Texas residency with U.S. work authorization
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with agent orchestration frameworks (BMad‑method, LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen)
- B2B/B2C eCommerce experience (complex catalogs, variants, faceted search, hybrid ordering)
- Ruby on Rails familiarity
- NetSuite ERP API integration experience
- Experience designing plug‑in or extension architectures
Success Traits
- You lead AI agents with strong architectural judgment
- You make pragmatic, evidence‑based technology choices
- You think in vertical slices and deliver incrementally
- You treat all work as team work—no hierarchy between new and legacy code
- You embody Amazon Leadership Principles
Team & Culture
- 10‑engineer AI‑first team, growing to 14
- One‑week Scrum sprints
- Dallas engineers onsite Wednesdays; others remote within Texas
- Direct, respectful communication with a high bar for quality
Technology Stack
Current: Ruby on Rails, PHP, server‑rendered JS, Oracle NetSuite, AWS
Future: React frontend, multi‑tier API‑first architecture, modern backend framework (your recommendation), AI tooling (your recommendation)