Full-Time

Senior AI Engineer

LLM, RAG

Updated on 9/4/2026

BrightAI

BrightAI

51-200 employees

AI-powered proactive asset monitoring for infrastructure

No salary listed

Palo Alto, CA, USA

In Person

Master's, PhD

Category
Software Engineering (1)
Required Skills
LLM
Claude
Pinecone
Python
PyTorch
Machine Learning
OpenAI
RAG
LangChain
Reinforcement Learning

Get referred to BrightAI

See people who can refer or advise you

Requirements
  • An M.S. or Ph.D. in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or a related field, with specialization in natural language processing or deep learning.
  • A strong research or applied background in large language models and retrieval-augmented generation systems.
  • At least 5 years of experience in machine learning or artificial intelligence, focused on natural language processing, large language models, or conversational AI.
  • Fluency with modern large language models and open-source foundational models such as LLAMA, Falcon, Mistral, GPT, and Claude.
  • Experience building retrieval-augmented generation pipelines with LangChain, LlamaIndex, or custom vector database integrations, including at least one production-grade system.
  • Fluency with prompt engineering, instruction tuning, or fine-tuning open-source models.
  • A deep understanding of document retrieval, including semantic search, embedding generation, similarity metrics, and vector stores such as FAISS, Weaviate, and Pinecone.
  • A strong foundation in core machine learning techniques, including experience with reinforcement learning or decision-making models.
  • Proficiency with machine learning development frameworks such as PyTorch and Hugging Face Transformers or similar tools.
  • Strong Python programming skills.
  • Experience integrating artificial intelligence systems into real-world applications with user-facing interfaces and operational constraints.
  • The ability to design solutions for complex, ambiguous problems.
  • The ability to collaborate cross-functionally with engineers, product managers, and domain experts.
Responsibilities
  • Lead the architecture and development of retrieval-augmented generation systems that combine large language models such as LLAMA, Mistral, Claude, and GPT with structured and unstructured external information sources.
  • Develop artificial-intelligence-powered assistants to support technicians in diagnosing and resolving anomalies or failures in factory, plant, and industrial settings.
  • Build pipelines to ingest, preprocess, and index large document corpora, including manuals, logs, notes, and procedures, for semantic search and grounding.
  • Customize and fine-tune foundational models to incorporate domain-specific language, tone, and logic for industrial troubleshooting scenarios.
  • Collaborate with product, data, and cloud teams to design scalable, privacy-compliant, and latency-sensitive large-language-model applications.
  • Design evaluation strategies to measure the performance, accuracy, and user experience of retrieval-augmented-generation systems in production settings.
  • Track advances in large-language-model architectures, retrieval methods, and prompt engineering, and integrate emerging techniques into the product roadmap.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience with agentic retrieval-augmented generation.
  • Experience applying large language models in industrial or physical infrastructure settings such as manufacturing, logistics, utilities, or energy.
  • Knowledge of industrial control systems, maintenance workflows, or technician support processes.
  • Exposure to multimodal models or integrating textual data with sensor or time-series data.
  • Prior experience in a startup or fast-paced environment building large-language-model-powered products from the ground up.
  • Excellent problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills.

BrightAI provides an AI and IoT platform, Stateful, that monitors critical infrastructure in real time and manages assets proactively. It collects data from sensors, drones, and robotics, and uses multimodal AI to detect issues, predict failures, and deliver actionable insights to field teams. The system can retrofit legacy infrastructure, enabling large service companies to modernize without replacing systems, with asset visibility, wearables, and autonomous inspections supported by edge computing. BrightAI targets utilities, water, HVAC, and manufacturing customers, aiming to shift infrastructure management from reactive to proactive and create high switching costs through an integrated hardware-software stack.

Company Size

51-200

Company Stage

Series A

Total Funding

$66M

Headquarters

San Francisco, California

Founded

2019

Get referred to BrightAI

See people who can refer or advise you

Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • BrightAI reported over 250,000 AI endpoints across 25,000-plus locations in November 2024.
  • Pelsis expanded BrightAI-powered pest products in February 2025 across food and pharma markets.
  • Series A capital funds a new San Francisco headquarters and 100-plus hires in 2025.

What critics are saying

  • Sales depend on giant contracts; one delayed utility rollout can stall revenue recognition.
  • Pelsis and Azuria partnerships concentrate execution risk in narrow verticals and long procurement cycles.
  • Palantir, Siemens, and Trimble can bundle adjacent tooling and compress BrightAI’s moat by 2027.

What makes BrightAI unique

  • Stateful OS fuses sensors, robotics, and multimodal AI into retrofit infrastructure control.
  • Azuria and Osmose deployments prove BrightAI sells into mission-critical, high-switching-cost workflows.
  • BrightAI’s 2025 Series A from Khosla and Inspired validates enterprise demand.

Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?

Benefits

Remote Work Options

Flexible Work Hours

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

2%

1 year growth

5%

2 year growth

0%
Consensus Digital Media
Sep 6th, 2025
BrightAI Raises $51M for AI Infrastructure

BrightAI, a San Francisco-based startup, raised a $51 million Series A round led by Khosla Ventures and Inspired Capital, valuing the company at around $300 million. The company, founded by Alex Hawkinson, uses AI for infrastructure maintenance tasks like pest control and power pole inspections. BrightAI's platform, Stateful, employs custom semiconductors and AI models. The startup has raised a total of $78 million.

The AI Insider
Jul 21st, 2025
BrightAI Closes $51M in Funding from Khosla Ventures and Inspired Capital to Bring Physical AI to the World's Essential Services

BrightAI closes $51M in funding from Khosla Ventures and Inspired Capital to bring Physical AI to the world's essential services.

FinSMEs
Jul 20th, 2025
BrightAI Raises $51M in Series A Funding

BrightAI, a San Francisco, CA-based company bringing AI into the physical world to power smarter, more resilient infrastructure, raised $51m in Series A funding

SiliconANGLE Media
Jul 18th, 2025
BrightAI raises $51M to ease infrastructure maintenance with AI

BrightAI Inc., a startup using artificial intelligence to help companies maintain physical assets, today announced that it has closed a $51 million funding round.

VCNewsDaily
Jul 18th, 2025
BrightAI Secures $51M in Series A

BrightAI announced a $51 million Series A funding round to enhance its AI-driven infrastructure solutions.