Lead AI Engineer

6 Month Contract to Hire Onsite 3 days/week – Hartford, CT $70/hr-$80/hr Must‑Have Qualifications • Extensive experience delivering enterprise‑scale conversational AI solutions from design through production • Deep hands‑on expertise with IBM WatsonX Orchestrate or similar conversational AI platforms • Strong full stack development background using NodeJS/TypeScript and Java with Spring • Advanced understanding of scalable architecture, enterprise data management, and integration patterns • Proven ability to evaluate business requirements and propose technically sound, cost‑effective, and scalable solutions • Experience leading solution delivery within SAFe Agile environments • Strong communication skills with the ability to influence technical direction across teams Nice‑to‑Have Qualifications • Experience with modern front‑end frameworks and UI technologies • Advanced NLP training, Speech‑to‑Text optimization, and SSML‑based voice refinement experience • Familiarity with analytics, data governance, and data engineering tools • Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud • Strong critical thinking skills and a proactive approach to emerging technologies and industry trends Day‑to‑Day As a Lead Conversational AI Solutions Engineer, you will own the technical design and end‑to‑end delivery of conversational AI solutions, ensuring alignment with business priorities, scalability, and performance goals. You will lead solution design discussions, participate in feature and story refinement, identify technical risks and dependencies, and recommend architectural approaches that balance functionality, cost, and long‑term sustainability. You will work closely with product, UI/UX, backend, and integration teams to align conversational experiences with enterprise systems and user needs. While this role does not involve people management, you will act as a technical leader by setting engineering standards, guiding implementation decisions, and ensuring high‑quality, user‑centric conversational solutions are delivered consistently.