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Gandiva Insights LLC

Principal AI Engineer

On site

San francisco bay, United states

Senior

Freelance

19-02-2026

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Skills

Communication Leadership Python Data Engineering Monitoring SDLC Organizational Skills Strategic Planning Spark

Job Specifications

Description:

We are seeking a senior‑level AI/ML engineering contractor to temporarily step into a technical leadership and team‑lead role supporting personalization models and the company’s AI platform.

The ideal candidate can balance technical expertise, strategic decision‑making, and day‑to‑day team guidance to ensure continuity during the leave period.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Technical Leadership for Personalization Models

Lead team performing development, improvement, and rollout of machine‑learning models that power personalized content, offers, and product recommendations.
Advise on model testing and experimentation, ensuring that new versions are evaluated properly before rollout.
Manage model performance, reliability, and response‑time improvements.

2. AI Platform Stewardship:

Drive enhancements to shared AI infrastructure, including data pipelines, model‑serving interfaces, monitoring, and observability.
Ensure engineering standards and best practices are followed across teams using the platform.
Partner with data engineering, product, and business teams to align platform capabilities with strategic needs.

3. Team & Program Leadership:

Provide technical direction to engineers and data scientists working across recommendation and personalization initiatives.
Maintain clear documentation and organize technical materials to keep ongoing work unblocked.
Coordinate cross‑functional planning, ensuring teams have clarity on goals, priorities, and dependencies.\

4. Strategic Planning & Delivery Management:

Make informed tradeoff decisions balancing speed, accuracy, reliability, and business value.
Ensure work continues to move forward smoothly in areas such as model upgrades, new placements, and user‑facing improvements.
Guide team in adopting AI solutions to accelerate SDLC

Required Skills & Experience:

Senior‑level experience building and operating machine‑learning systems in production.
Strong understanding of ranking models, recommendation systems, model evaluation, and experiment design.
Hands‑on expertise with modern AI/ML engineering tools (e.g., Python, Spark or similar, cloud‑based ML pipelines, cloud model‑serving frameworks, and API design).
Ability to lead engineering discussions, guide team members, and provide clear direction.
Strong organizational skills: able to manage complex projects and maintain structure during a temporary leadership period.
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate technical details into clear action for partners and stakeholders.

About the Company

Gandiv Insights is a leading professional services and staffing firm specializing in top-tier personnel and technical solutions across engineering, IT, non-IT, and healthcare sectors. Our expertise spans information technology, engineering, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, biotechnology, clinical research (CRO), and medical devices. With a deep understanding of industry demands, we help companies navigate complex, regulated environments while ensuring compliance, quality, and innovation. Our intentionally inclusive hiring app... Know more