AI Engineering Manager

About

Unison Systems is seeking an AI Engineering Manager to lead enterprise-scale delivery of LLM and applied machine learning solutions for our client in Denver, CO.

This is an onsite contract role (5 days/week, 8-5 MST) running through year-end. You will report to director/VP level and own end-to-end AI/ML product strategy, team leadership, and execution in a business-critical environment. The role requires deep hands-on LLM expertise paired with strong people leadership and the ability to translate complex AI concepts into clear strategies for senior executives.

Responsibilities

• Build, mentor, and scale teams of data scientists, ML engineers, data engineers, and software engineers
• Set technical standards, provide coaching for senior talent, and foster accountability, delivery, and innovation
• Lead design, development, and deployment of AI/ML solutions from ideation through production
• Own LLM strategy including model selection, fine-tuning, RAG architectures, prompt engineering, and agentic workflows
• Partner with architecture and platform teams to establish standards and best practices for enterprise AI
• Define and communicate an AI/ML roadmap aligned to business strategy
• Identify high-value AI opportunities, prioritize use cases, and articulate value, tradeoffs, and risks to executives
• Collaborate with product, engineering, operations, risk/compliance, and business teams to translate requirements into solutions
• Drive execution using Agile methods; establish KPIs, OKRs, and success metrics
• Prepare executive-ready updates, business cases, and technical briefings
• Champion ethical, responsible, and compliant AI practices

Requirements

• 8+ years of people management experience leading technical teams (ML, data science, data engineering, or software engineering)
• 8+ years of applied ML/data science experience in industry
• 4+ years of hands-on LLM experience including fine-tuning, RAG architectures, prompt engineering, and agentic systems
• Proven track record of delivering AI/ML systems to production in complex, real-world environments
• Experience deploying products at Fortune 100 or equivalent enterprise scale
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with demonstrated ability to influence executives
• Strong Agile leadership and program management skills
• Business-focused mindset-able to frame AI decisions in terms of outcomes, ROI, and risk
• Comfort operating in ambiguity and balancing experimentation with discipline
• Advanced degree in Computer Science, AI/ML, Statistics, or related field (preferred)
• Hands-on experience with modern AI/ML stacks (Python, PyTorch/TensorFlow, vector databases, MLOps frameworks, cloud AI services) (preferred)

Unison Systems is Colorado's leading IT staffing and engineering consulting firm - apply today and let us put our 27 years of expertise to work for you.