Azure AI Engineer

Azure AI Engineer Contract On site, 4 days in the office in Iselin, NJ or NYC (downtown) Seeking an Azure AI Engineer / Developer with minimum 3+ years of hands-on experience in designing, building, and operating AI solutions on Microsoft Azure. You will develop agentic and model driven applications using Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft Copilot (including Copilot Studio and the Copilot Agent Framework), and modern MLOps practices. The role focuses on integrating AI into enterprise systems (including SharePoint grounded RAG) with robust guardrails, security, performance, and scalability. Job Duties: • Design, build, and manage AI applications on Microsoft Azure, using Azure AI Foundry, Azure Machine Learning, Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search (Knowledge Mining), and Cognitive Services. • Integrate AI models into applications, services, and processes as APIs. • Leverage SharePoint content for RAG and MCP integration— build pipelines that index enterprise documents, configure vector search, and ground Copilot responses with secure SharePoint data access. • Implement Responsible AI guardrails—set up safety filters, prompt moderation, content policies, and compliance checks; maintain auditability and incident playbooks. • Perform model fine tuning using JSONL datasets for generative AI/custom scenarios; manage prompt strategies, grounding, and evaluation. • Conduct testing and QA (unit/functional, load/performance, safety tests, prompt safety, regression suites). • Document AI development—create runbooks, architecture diagrams, and operational playbooks for supportability and audits. • Stay current with AI advancements—evaluate new Azure capabilities (model catalog updates, agent orchestration, prompt engineering patterns). • Ensure compliance and security—adhere to data privacy regulations and enterprise policy; use Azure Key Vault, Managed Identity, Private Links, RBAC, Purview, and other security controls. • Provide technical leadership and strategic direction for AI initiatives; contribute to platform standards, best practices, and reusable components. Job Requirements: Required • 3+ years in an Azure AI Engineer / Developer delivering production AI solutions. • Expertise in Microsoft Azure and AI services: Azure AI Foundry, Azure Machine Learning, Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search (Cognitive Search), Cognitive Services. • Programming experience in C# (APIs, SDKs, automation scripts, serverless functions) and Python • SharePoint Online experience for RAG pipelines and MCP integration—indexing, metadata enrichment, and secure access patterns. • Strong competence with Microsoft Copilot, Copilot Studio, and the Copilot Agent Framework for agentic workflows and enterprise data integration. • Prior experience in integrating with Microsoft Graph, SharePoint, Teams, and Power Platform; building Copilot plugins/skills grounded in enterprise content. Preferred • Experience with RAG, vector indexing, and knowledge mining using Azure AI Search; document intelligence with Form Recognizer. • Hands on MLOps (Azure ML pipelines/registries/endpoints), DevOps (Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions) Vertex Solutions Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, national origin, ancestry, religion, age, citizenship, sex, marital or veteran status, disability or handicap, sexual orientation or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.