Senior AI Engineer

About Nivara

Nivara is a B2B Generative AI scale-up pioneering at the intersection of Privacy and Artificial Intelligence. We specialize in Local Artificial General Intelligence (LAGI®) models, delivering privacy-first AI solutions that tackle some of today's most pressing challenges. With a focus on innovation, security, and trust, we are building a safer, brighter future — and we seek visionaries ready to shape it with us.

Our Mission

By embedding Human Factors Engineering and Ethical AI into every solution, we deliver intuitive, compliant, and ethically aligned technology. Focused on the B2B sector, we are committed to expanding our presence across diverse market verticals such as healthcare, logistics, finance, agriculture and more, with specialized offerings.

About the Role

As a Senior AI Engineer at Nivara, you will own the technical direction of the AI projects that define our platform. You will take complex, ambiguous problems from first idea to production, pushing the boundaries of what privacy-first generative AI can do — and you will do it as the technical reference point for our growing AI team. This is a role for someone who has already shipped serious AI systems and now wants the autonomy, ownership, and influence to shape a company's technology from the inside. You will lead projects end to end, mentor and support our AI Engineer, and set the engineering standards the rest of the team grows into.

What Success Looks Like

• Own and lead the design, development, training, and deployment of custom AI models that tackle previously unsolvable problems, advancing Nivara's technology at the cutting edge of privacy and generative AI.
• Lead projects end to end: scope the problem, define the technical approach, drive delivery, and be accountable for the result in production.
• Mentor and support our engineers through code reviews, pair work, and technical guidance — raising the quality bar of the whole team, not just your own work.
• Serve as the technical authority on AI within Nivara, shaping our roadmap and architecture decisions together with Product, Applied Research, and Engineering leadership.
• Turn customer feedback and industry developments into concrete product opportunities, and translate them into shipped capabilities.

What You Will Do

• Architect, build, and train bespoke models and LLM-based systems that maximize business impact and can run reliably in privacy-constrained, on-premise or local environments.
• Lead the integration of these models into our platform, owning performance, robustness, security, and scalability from prototype to production.
• Set engineering standards for the AI team: evaluation methodology, experiment tracking, reproducibility, documentation, and deployment practices.
• Proactively identify gaps in Nivara's AI capabilities and drive high-quality, actionable recommendations through to execution.
• Build the tools, frameworks, and knowledge base that let AI model customization scale across the organization.
• Act as the bridge between Applied Research, Product, and Engineering, ensuring what we research becomes what we ship.

What Sets You Up for Success

• 4–5+ years of hands-on experience in machine learning and software engineering, with a proven track record of taking AI models from research to production.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex AI projects end to end and delivering innovative, high-impact solutions — you can point to systems you've shipped and owned.
• Deep expertise in modern deep learning and generative AI: transformer architectures, LLM fine-tuning and adaptation (e.g., LoRA/PEFT), RAG, evaluation, and inference optimization, using frameworks such as PyTorch.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: clean, production-grade Python, data structures, system design, and solid MLOps practices (CI/CD, containerization, model serving and monitoring).
• Rigorous analytical foundation in probability, statistics, and algorithms — you reason from first principles, not just from libraries.
• Experience mentoring or technically guiding other engineers, with the judgment to know when to lead and when to let others grow.
• Excellent organizational, time management, and adaptive learning abilities in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.

Nice to Have

• Experience deploying models in privacy-sensitive, on-premise, edge, or air-gapped environments, including model compression, quantization, and local inference.
• Familiarity with AI governance, security, and compliance frameworks (e.g., GDPR, EU AI Act) and how they shape technical design.
• Contributions to open-source projects, publications, or patents in AI/ML.
• Advanced degree (Master's or Ph.D.) in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related field.
• Proven ability to communicate complex AI concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, turning them into actionable decisions.

Why Join Nivara

• Competitive compensation & benefits: Enjoy a market-leading salary, performance-based bonuses, and comprehensive health insurance coverage.
• Real ownership: Lead the projects that define our product, with the autonomy and trust that come with a senior role in a fast-growing scale-up.
• Flexible work model: Embrace a hybrid setup that balances in-office collaboration with the freedom and convenience of remote work within our Italian division.
• Professional growth is not just a possibility at Nivara, it's a promise. Access continuous learning opportunities, mentorship, and a clear path toward technical leadership in a cutting-edge field at the forefront of AI innovation. Your growth is our growth, and we're committed to helping you reach your full potential.
• Wellbeing & lifestyle perks: Benefit from wellness programs, team-building events, and a supportive work-life balance that encourages both personal and professional fulfillment.

Nivara is dedicated to fostering an inclusive workplace and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We welcome candidates from diverse backgrounds and do not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or any other status protected by law. Your unique perspective and experiences are what make our team stronger.

Join Us

If you have already built AI systems that matter and want to lead the next generation of privacy-first generative AI, we want to hear from you. Apply now and help shape the future of Privacy and Generative AI with Nivara!