Job Summary
You build the production AI systems Centrax Digital ships to clients, and you are accountable for how safely and how well they perform. ABOUT CENTRAX DIGITAL Centrax Digital is an AI-first consulting and digital engineering firm operating from Bryanston, Sandton and Grand Prairie, Texas. We are a Level 1 B-BBEE, black woman-owned Advanced Zoho Partner. Our work spans AI and advisory, platforms, cloud and security, and digital engineering, delivered on our own published methodology. Because Innovation Matters. THE ROLE To design, build, deploy and operate production AI systems for Centrax Digital clients on CAIF-5, the Centrax AI delivery framework. You bridge experimentation, engineering and operation of AI in production, and you own the safety, performance and measurability of what you ship. WHAT YOU WILL DO - Design and build production-grade AI applications using LLM frameworks, vector databases and the CAIF reference architecture. - Implement retrieval-augmented generation pipelines: chunking, embedding, indexing, retrieval, ranking, generation and citation. - Build and maintain evaluation frameworks: golden datasets, regression suites, online evaluation and human review. - Engineer for safety: prompt injection defence, output filtering, sensitive data redaction and escalation paths. - Deploy and operate AI workloads in production, including monitoring, drift detection and incident response. - Triage and improve underperforming AI capabilities through prompt, retrieval and model tuning. - Contribute reusable components, prompts and evaluation kits to the AI Practice Library. - Support client thought leadership and pre-sales on AI engagements. WHAT YOU NEED - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics or a related quantitative field. A Master's in CS, ML or AI is an advantage. - Minimum 3 years' professional software engineering experience. - At least one production AI application shipped, with measurable outcomes, and hands-on experience with LLMs in production rather than prototypes only. - Professional Python, with working knowledge of LLM frameworks, vector databases, hybrid search and evaluation methods such as RAGAS or LLM-as-judge. - Experience operating AI workloads: containers, CI/CD, monitoring and cost control. - An AI, ML or cloud AI certification (for example Azure AI Engineer, AWS ML Specialty or GCP ML Engineer) is an advantage. A visible technical portfolio or open-source contribution is an advantage. WHERE THE BOUNDARIES SIT Solution architecture for AI workloads sits with the AI Solutions Architect. AI strategy, business cases and client AI governance sit with the AI Strategy Consultant. The wider client solution landscape sits with the Solution Architect. HOW THIS ROLE EVOLVES Centrax is concurrently advertising an AI Solutions Architect and a Lead / Principal AI Strategy Consultant. Progression from this role runs through Senior AI Engineer to Principal AI Engineer, with a path to AI Practice Lead. WORKING ARRANGEMENTS Standard working hours of 08:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday, with flexibility expected around AI deployment windows and incident response. Hybrid working in line with company policy. Standby duty may apply when AI capabilities run in production. Standard 21 days annual leave and BCEA leave entitlements apply. REMUNERATION Market related, commensurate with experience. EMPLOYMENT EQUITY AND POPIA Centrax Digital is an equal opportunity employer. Appointments are made in line with the Employment Equity Act and the company's employment equity plan, and preference may be given to suitably qualified candidates from designated groups. By applying, you consent to the processing of your personal information for recruitment purposes in accordance with POPIA. HOW TO APPLY Apply through the Centrax Digital careers portal. Applications close on the target date shown on this listing. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted; if you have not heard from us within four weeks of the closing date, please consider your application unsuccessful.