The AI Development Specialist will lead the design, development, and deployment of scalable, production‑grade AI solutions on Microsoft Azure. This role owns end‑to‑end delivery—from data ingestion and model development to deployment and operationalization—ensuring solutions are secure, reliable, cost‑effective, and compliant with enterprise standards. Responsibilities Design, develop, and deploy end‑to‑end AI solutions on Azure. Build and optimize Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines and prompt strategies. Translate business requirements into scalable AI architectures and technical designs. Implement event‑driven and real‑time data integrations using Azure services. Containerize applications and manage deployments across AKS, Functions, and App Service. Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for automated testing and releases. Apply Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for consistent and repeatable deployments. Establish MLOps practices including model versioning, monitoring, and lifecycle management. Implement logging, telemetry, and observability for production systems. Optimize model performance, scalability, and cost efficiency. Ensure adherence to security, data governance, and Responsible AI standards. Troubleshoot and resolve production issues across AI and data pipelines. Collaborate with data, engineering, and business teams to deliver solutions. Produce and maintain technical documentation, architecture diagrams, and runbooks. Stay current with emerging AI and Azure technologies and recommend improvements. Qualifications & Experience 7+ years of experience in software engineering and/or machine learning engineering. Minimum 3+ years delivering production AI solutions on Microsoft Azure. Proven track record of deployed solutions, including architecture documentation and operational runbooks. Strong experience in: RAG system design Prompt engineering Performance tuning and optimization Solid data engineering background and experience with secure integration patterns. Working knowledge of Responsible AI frameworks and regulatory compliance. Reference Number The Reference Number for this position is NG61265, which is a contract position based in Johannesburg offering a salary of up to R440 per hour, negotiable on experience and ability. Contact Nokuthula at or call her on to discuss this and other opportunities. #J-18808-Ljbffr