Senior Software Engineer – AI Applications | Java, AI Workflows, LLMs, Distributed Systems

Up to €130 per hour (based on a 40-hour working week)

Amsterdam – Hybrid, minimum 1 day per week on site

Contract until the end of 2026, with the possibility of extension

About the Client

Digital Skills are working with a global technology business undertaking long-term investment in AI-powered digital products.

About the Role

This is a senior, hands-on engineering role within an AI Applications platform team, focused on building scalable AI-powered workflows and services. The successful candidate will operate as a technical leader, working closely with machine learning engineers and data scientists to bring AI and LLM-driven solutions into production at scale.

Responsibilities

Design and implement AI application workflows, including LLM-based pipelines and orchestration
Build scalable backend systems that support real-time AI inference in production environments
Collaborate closely with ML engineers, data scientists and data engineers to productionise AI solutions
Lead by example as a senior individual contributor, coaching and guiding less experienced engineers
Explore, evaluate and integrate new AI and ML tooling to support evolving product needs

Desired Skills and Experience

10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong backend or platform focus
Proven experience building and scaling complex production systems, not limited to side projects
Deep expertise in AI and machine learning systems, particularly AI applications and agents
Hands-on experience with LLMs, AI workflows, orchestration and context engineering
Experience building AI agents and components such as memory, retrieval and workflow coordination
Strong Java experience, with Python also acceptable
Experience integrating AI or ML models into production systems and understanding their constraints
Solid background in distributed systems, performance tuning, observability and reliability practices
Experience with scalable data stores such as MySQL and Redis, including caching strategies
Practical experience with Docker and Kubernetes
Cloud experience with AWS or GCP, with container orchestration considered more important than cloud vendor
Experience mentoring and coaching engineers in a senior or technical leadership capacity

Summary of the Best Candidate

This role suits a highly experienced Senior Software Engineer who remains deeply hands-on and has a strong background in building and scaling complex systems. The ideal candidate will combine deep software engineering fundamentals with proven AI and LLM experience, and will be comfortable acting as a technical lead within a collaborative, cross-functional AI product team.

Digital Skills ltd

Vacatures

Artificial Intelligence Engineer