[Hiring] Senior AI Engineer @refurbed

Role Description

Lead the design and delivery of internal AI tools and systems that support refurbed’s transformation into an AI-native company. As a senior back-end engineer for internal AI, you will own the services, integrations, and deployment pathways that take internal tools from prototype to secure, reliable full-scale internal deployment.

You will partner closely with the Head of Internal Technology & AI, who owns the strategy and AI and IT portfolio, to assess technical feasibility, prioritise initiatives, and deliver solutions while collaborating with our core platform Engineering teams. Success will be measured by how effectively internal tools reach and perform, and by clear visibility into what is running, who owns it, what outcomes it drives, and what it costs.

Qualifications

• Experienced senior back-end engineer with a strong track record of building and operating production systems in Go, Python, or a similar language.
• Comfortable owning services end to end, from architecture and deployment to secrets management, monitoring, and ongoing reliability.
• Built AI- or LLM-powered applications for production use, understanding the full lifecycle, including model integration, evaluation, observability, and responding when systems fail in production.
• Confident working with modern AI development tools and keeping up with the rapidly evolving ecosystem.
• Hands-on experience with AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor.
• Ability to evaluate tools and platforms pragmatically and make sound build-versus-buy decisions.
• Good technical and product judgment, including knowing when not to build.
• Ability to simplify or stop initiatives when needed and provide clear, constructive feedback on AI-assisted applications.
• Work effectively with non-technical stakeholders and treat internal users as customers.
• Take a security-conscious approach by default, considering identity, access control, secrets, and data exposure from the outset.

Requirements

• Experience with Google Cloud Platform (nice to have).
• Strong Go experience or strong Python experience with an interest in working with Go (nice to have).
• Product discovery experience (nice to have).
• Experience with corporate IT, identity and access management, or application security (nice to have).
• Experience supporting an organisation through an AI transformation (nice to have).
• Location: Open to candidates based in Europe (including UK) only with a valid right to work.

What You Will Do

• Design, build, and operate reliable back-end services, APIs, and integrations that power our internal AI tools and workflows.
• Manage a secure, supported deployment path that enables non-engineers to launch internal tools with built-in guardrails.
• Build and maintain shared AI capabilities, including reusable skills, plugins, MCP connectors, and a central registry of internal tools, ownership, and costs.
• Deliver company-wide AI services and a standard toolkit that helps every new joiner use AI effectively from day one.
• Evaluate technical options and make pragmatic decisions about architecture, model selection, integrations, and whether to build or buy.
• Help shape the technical direction and scope of our internal AI platform.
• Help define a risk-based review framework for internally built AI applications and assess solutions against it.
• Implement practical safeguards, including access controls, sandboxing, and controls for model usage and data handling.
• Move business-critical automations from individual machines to reliable, supported infrastructure.
• Establish and continuously improve technical standards, runtimes, and best practices for internal AI development.
• Partner with the Head of Internal Technology & AI to turn governance requirements into practical technical controls.
• Drive adoption of the tools you build through demonstrations, documentation, and hands-on integration support.
• Partner with departmental AI champions to remove technical blockers and help teams turn ideas into safe, maintainable solutions.
• Document systems clearly so others can operate, maintain, and extend them.
• Stay current with developments in AI models, tools, and engineering practices, and translate relevant advances into practical opportunities for the business.

Benefits

• Access to a dedicated learning budget within your department to support your growth.
• Private sessions with experts for personal growth and mental health through partnership with Likeminded.
• Frequent internal workshops to further develop skills and enhance collaboration across departments.
• Fully remote setting with the option to work from the office in Vienna.
• Self-organization and flexibility in work hours.
• Participation in office weeks for team-building events and on-site workshops.