AI Engineer - R&D

A collective energy and ambition. A place where you can make a real difference.

We’re a company that genuinely cares about our people, our products, our consumers and the environment.

Our unique, informal culture champions courage, determination and collaboration. Knowing we have an open and supportive team means each of us has the freedom to take responsibility and ownership. We have a shared passion to work hard, innovate and push boundaries.

United by the belief that when we strive for growth, anything is possible. While we might not be the largest company in our industry, we believe we can have the biggest impact because: Together We Have the Power to Win.

Job Summary

Church & Dwight is seeking an AI Engineer to join our R&D Agentic Pod team, which is responsible for designing, building, deploying, and scaling AI-powered products that transform how R&D teams make decisions and operate. The AI Engineer, R&D will specialize in large language models and generative AI, with primary accountability for building reliable retrieval-augmented generation systems, agentic workflows, orchestration, and production integrations.

About the Role

The AI Engineer, R&D will translate R&D business requirements into secure, scalable AI products that combine enterprise knowledge, approved data, machine learning models, tools, and human oversight. The AI Engineer builds the technical foundations that enable agents and generative AI applications to operate reliably in the enterprise.

Working closely with R&D, Quality, & Regulatory stakeholders, AI Champions, Data Scientists, GTA partners, enterprise architecture, security, data engineering, and platform teams, this role contributes from prototype through deployment, monitoring, adoption, and continuous improvement.

Success in this role will be measured by solution quality, accuracy, reliability, security, maintainability, user adoption, business impact, cost and latency performance, and delivery of reusable generative AI capabilities.

The role sits within the Global Technology and Analytics (GTA) R&D Innovation & AI organization, reporting to the Lead, R&D Agentic Pod. 

Work Environment

Hybrid: This is a hybrid role based in Princeton, NJ, and requires in- person attendance on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with remote work options on Mondays and Fridays.

Role Accountabilities and Responsibilities

• Translate R&D business needs into secure, scalable AI products combining approved enterprise knowledge, structured and unstructured data, models, tools, permissions, and human oversight.
• Design, build, test, deploy, and maintain LLM and generative AI applications, agentic workflows, and orchestration patterns covering planning, routing, tool use, memory, handoffs, and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Build and optimize RAG systems using vector databases, embeddings, chunking, indexing, metadata, hybrid search, reranking, grounding, and source attribution; create traceable ingestion and refresh processes.
• Engineer reusable production prompts and integrations for generative AI APIs, enterprise services, applications, analytical models, workflow tools, and knowledge repositories.
• Develop automated and human evaluations for accuracy, groundedness, safety, relevance, task completion, latency, cost, and usability; monitor quality, adoption, incidents, and business outcomes.
• Identify hallucination, prompt injection, tool, retrieval, and operational risks; implement guardrails, fallbacks, authentication, authorization, logging, secrets management, and data controls.
• Apply strong software engineering practices, including modular design, source control, code review, automated testing, documentation, release management, observability, and production support.
• Partner with R&D, Quality, Regulatory, Data Science, GTA, architecture, data engineering, platform, security, privacy, and governance teams from discovery and prototyping through deployment, training, adoption, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure compliance with enterprise architecture, privacy, security, legal, compliance, data governance, and responsible AI standards; document architecture, controls, dependencies, procedures, limitations, and intended use.

Skills and Competencies

•  Action-oriented, data-driven problem solver focused on measurable outcomes.
• Strategic systems thinker with strong technical, business, and product acumen.
• Collaborative, curious, and accountable; effective in ambiguity and influencing without authority.

Technical Skills

• Generative AI: LLMs, prompt engineering, structured outputs, tool calling, model optimization.
• RAG & Agents: Embeddings, vector databases, hybrid retrieval, reranking, grounding, orchestration, memory, human oversight.
• Engineering: Python, APIs, SDKs, cloud AI, authentication, source control, automated testing.
• AI Operations: Evaluation, observability, safety, failure analysis, monitoring, latency and cost optimization.
• Governance: Responsible AI, privacy, security, data governance, access controls, documentation, auditability.
  

Education and Experience

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline required.         
• 3+ years of experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, AI engineering, data engineering, or a related discipline required.         
• Hands-on experience building LLM and generative AI applications, including production prompt engineering, structured outputs, tool calling, model selection, APIs, evaluation, testing, monitoring, and optimization.         
• Experience building enterprise RAG solutions with vector databases, embeddings, retrieval pipelines, knowledge sources, hybrid retrieval, reranking, grounding, and source attribution.
• Experience with agent frameworks, workflow orchestration, routing, handoffs, memory patterns, and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Proficiency in Python, REST APIs and SDKs, cloud AI services, source control, automated testing, authentication, and authorization.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Software Engineering, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline preferred.
• Experience integrating AI solutions with enterprise applications, data platforms, security controls, and governed knowledge repositories.
• Experience in Consumer Packaged Goods R&D, Quality, and/or Regulatory environments.
• Strong systems thinking, business acumen, product mindset, prioritization, problem-solving, data-driven storytelling, collaboration, curiosity, accountability, and ability to influence without authority in ambiguous environments

Compensation and Benefits

The U.S. base salary range for this full-time position is $71,000– $101,100. This position is also eligible for a bonus. 

As a Church & Dwight US employee, you (and eligible dependents, as applicable) will have access to medical, dental, vision, basic life insurance, paid vacation and sick time, and Paid Parental Leave. U.S. employees are entitled to paid holidays, floating holidays, and vacation days starting in their first year of employment depending on hire date. You are also able to participate in our 401k retirement plan (with company match and profit-sharing) and Discounted Employee Stock Purchase Plan.   

The actual base pay offered to the successful candidate will be based on multiple factors, including, but not limited to, job-related knowledge/skills, experience, business needs, geographical location, and internal pay parity.  Compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.

#LI-Hybrid

Church & Dwight is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities.

For more information on our company, our brands and our culture visit us at http://www.churchdwight.com/