Senior AI Engineer

Department:

Location:

Non-Campus Other

Time Type:

Full time

Worker Type:

Regular

Job Req ID:

R109102

Minimum Requirements:

Master’s degree or higher in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or Data Science and two (2) years of relevant experience. Grade 13 (Salaried)

Position Description:

The University of Louisville is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to lead the design and delivery of secure, end-to-end multi-agent (“agentic”) AI systems that act on a user’s behalf in high-stakes, security-sensitive environments such as healthcare, manufacturing, and defense. Rather than treating agentic LLMs as text-only backends, this role builds the visible, secure human interface and orchestration layer that lets people observe the reasoning behind an action before a critical, costly decision is made. The engineer architects orchestration frameworks that coordinate distributed specialist agents over secure, bidirectional transports, with scoped, auditable delegation and structured, device-adaptive outputs.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Architect and build end-to-end agentic AI systems, spanning model training, distributed inference, authentication/authorization, and the user-facing applications people actually touch, for production-grade, ultra-secure environments.

• Design multi-agent orchestration: a central orchestrator coordinating distributed specialist agents (e.g., retrieval, records, vision) over a bidirectional, low-latency, stateful transport (e.g., WebSockets).

• Implement a delegated-authority / scoped-authorization model (e.g., OAuth 2.0 Token Exchange) so every agent action carries an explicit, narrowly scoped, auditable actor claim, closing the accountability gap created when agents impersonate users.

• Develop standardized agent communication and tool-use protocols (e.g., Model Context Protocol and Agent-to-Agent / A2A), extending them with structured UI primitives.

• Build a platform-agnostic, server-driven interface and response-translation layer that adapts structured outputs to the connecting device (desktop, smartwatch, voice/ambient, robotics).

• Ensure security, compliance, and auditability for AI operating in regulated, high-stakes domains.

• Provide technical leadership, mentor junior engineers and students, and contribute to peer-reviewed research and open-source releases.

• Work within secure environments that handle sensitive data: apply cybersecurity best practices and institutional security and compliance controls (e.g., HIPAA, NIST 800-53) across every system built and operated.

Preferred Qualifications

• At least 2 years of direct, hands-on experience building agentic / multi-agent AI systems (i.e., 2+ years working in this specific role).

• Strong software engineering background: distributed systems, APIs, real-time transports, and authentication/authorization.

• Demonstrated experience building and deploying LLM- or agent-based systems in production, including secure, isolated ML infrastructure.

• Proven ability to work in secure environments that handle sensitive, confidential data, with a strong focus on cybersecurity. Must follow institutional security, privacy, and compliance controls (e.g., HIPAA, NIST 800-53) and apply secure engineering practices to protect sensitive data.

• Multi-agent orchestration and agent communication protocols (MCP, A2A).

• OAuth 2.0 Token Exchange and scoped/delegated authorization patterns.

• Experience in regulated or high-stakes domains (healthcare/HIPAA, defense, manufacturing).

• Record of peer-reviewed publications and a history of mentoring.

Competencies

• Secure, end-to-end AI system development

• Multi-agent orchestration & distributed inference

• Delegated authority / OAuth 2.0 token exchange

• Model Context Protocol (MCP) & Agent-to-Agent (A2A) communication

• Server-driven UI & structured-output translation

• Trusted, isolated ML infrastructure & deployment

• Cybersecurity & secure handling of sensitive data

Target Compensation Maximum:

$185,857.00

Target Compensation Minimum:

$123,870.00

Compensation will be commensurate to candidate experience.

Equal Employment Opportunity

The University of Louisville is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. The University strives to provide equal employment opportunity on the basis of merit and without unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, sex, age, color, national origin, ethnicity, creed, religion, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, veteran status, marital status, or pregnancy. In accordance with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam Era Veteran Readjustment Act of 1974, the University prohibits job discrimination of individuals with disabilities, Vietnam era veterans, qualified special disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, and other protected veterans. The University acknowledges its obligations to ensure affirmative steps are taken to ensure equal employment opportunities for all employees and applicants for employment. It is the policy of the University that no employee or applicant for employment be subject to unlawful discrimination in terms of recruitment, hiring, promotion, contract, contract renewal, tenure, compensation, benefits, and/or working conditions. No employee or applicant for employment is required to endorse or condemn a specific ideology, political viewpoint, or social viewpoint to be eligible for hiring, contract renewal, tenure, or promotion.

Consistent with applicable law, demographic information is collected for aggregate reporting requirements. Demographic information provided through this application is not available to hiring managers/committees and is not considered in hiring or employment decisions.

Assistance and Accommodations

Computers are available for application submission at the Human Resources Department located at 2315 South First Street Walk, Room 02C - Louisville, Kentucky 40292.

If you require assistance or accommodation with our online application process, please contact us by email at [email protected] or by phone 502-852-6258.