Senior AI Developer

Advertising Summary

Department Summary

At the VCU Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation our mission is to foster transformative research discovery and innovation at Virginia Commonwealth University through excellence in service.

We partner with faculty in all schools and departments as they seek funding plan studies establish collaborations calculate budgets submit grant applications negotiate industry contracts and secure patents and licensing agreements.

Our commitment to supporting and elevating the research community at VCU has resulted in record levels of sponsored research and has placed VCU among the nations premier public research universities.

Through our passion for discovery and willingness to take on challenges we continue to advance the work that matters most and position the university as a national leader in research innovation creativity and scholarship.

Duties & Responsibilities

The Senior AI Developer will be a member of the OVPRI IT team and is responsible for the design development and maintenance of customized artificial intelligence solutions that enhance the research mission of the University. The Developer will leverage Large Language Models LLMs and Retrieval-Augmented Generation RAG to create secure tools that will accelerate and enhance the research administration process. The incumbent must balance high-level machine learning engineering with a deep commitment to digital ethics and institutional data sovereignty.

Typical Duties

LLM Development and Management

Custom LLM Implementation Design and maintain LLM models that allows the research community to access models via a secure authenticated internal interface.

RAG Pipeline Construction Build and optimize Retrieval-Augmented Generation RAG pipelines that allow AI agents to read university-specific research administration and regulatory affairs data grant proposals contracts agreements protocols etc without leaking that data into public training sets.

Vector Database Management Manage and scale vector databases to ensure high-speed semantic search across research administration and regulatory affairs documents.

New AI Documentation Document LLM and RAG processes and configurations Document APIs to allow applications to utilize AI technologies developed Provide recommendations on appropriate training documents for models and fine-time parameters. Provide detailed training documentation to users as needed.

Research AI Technologies Research new AI technologies and provide recommendations on implementation. Test new AI methodologies and usages and provide recommendations for integration with existing systems.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

Demonstrated ability to work in and foster an environment of respect professionalism and civility with a population of faculty staff and students from all backgrounds and experiences or a commitment to do so as a staff member at VCU. Only applicants who do not require current or future sponsorship for employment will be considered Bachelors degree in computer science Data Science Information Technology or a related field. Minimum of 2 years of experience in software development with at least 1 year of hands-on experience developing applications using LLM APIs OpenAI Anthropic or open-source models or an equivalent combination of education and professional experience. Advanced proficiency in Python including experience with asynchronous programming and data manipulation libraries Pandas vLLM LangChain PyTorch. Demonstrated experience building with RAG Retrieval-Augmented Generation architectures and orchestration tools like document chunking embedding and retrieval inferences. Experience with at least one Vector Database e.g. Chroma Qdrant. Ability to translate complex technical AI concepts for non-technical stakeholders Faculty Staff and Students. Ability to manage tasks on multiple concurrent projects.

Preferred Qualifications

Subspeciality or Degree in a field related to Artificial Intelligence. Previous experience working within a Higher Education environment. Experience utilizing an HPC cluster slurm bash scripts and GPU usage Knowledge of PEFT Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning methods specifically LoRA Low-Rank Adaptation Basic ability to build rapid prototypes to demonstrate AI tools to users. Demonstrated knowledge of data security and accessibility standards.

Salary Range

68300 - 105000

Benefits

All full-time university staff are eligible for VCUs robust benefits package that includes comprehensive health benefits paid annual and holiday leave generous tuition benefits retirement planning and savings options tax-deferred annuity and cash match programs employee discounts well-being resources abundant opportunities for career development and advancement and more.

Unit

Office of the Vice President for Research & Innovation

Department

Research Information Systems

FLSA Exemption Status

Exempt

Hours per Week

40

Restricted Position

No

ORP Eligible

No

Flexible Work Arrangement

Hybrid

University Job Title

24255N - Sr IT Developer

Programmer 2 - Open

LI-DNI