AI Engineer, AI Transformation

AI Engineer, AI Transformation

Location: Nairobi, Kenya; Delhi, India; Dakar, Senegal

About the Role

We are seeking candidates with strong software engineering skills in Python, experience building with Large Language Models, and a passion for building solutions to difficult social problems. Ideal candidates should be able to take a problem from concept to deployed, user-facing tool — handling frontend, backend, and everything in between. You should be able to work independently to solve complex challenges and quickly learn new tools and technologies as needed.

As an AI engineer on the AI Transformation team, the day-to-day work may include:

• Working with IDinsight teams and external clients to understand their current processes and pain points and identifying which of these can be solved with AI-powered tools.
• Working across business functions internally and externally — from research to finance to operations to programmatic challenges — to find ways of creating efficiency gains through AI tools and automation.
• Building and deploying user-facing AI applications: from LLM-based pipelines and agents to workflow automations and internal tools.
• Designing, testing, and iterating on LLM-based solutions — prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, multi-step agent architectures, and API integrations.
• Working across the full stack — frontend, backend, and deployment — to ship tools that people actually use.
• Building dashboards, usage tracking, and analytics to measure the impact of deployed tools.
• Synthesising, visualizing, and communicating results internally with other teams as well as externally with clients: dashboards, plots, interactive viz, presentations and reports.
• Writing blog posts or presenting on lessons learned.

Required Technical Qualifications

• 2–4 years of professional experience in software engineering, AI/ML engineering, or a closely related technical role.
• Proficiency in Python is required — including web frameworks, API development, and scripting. Please do not apply if you are not comfortable building production-quality Python applications.
• Experience building solutions using Large Language Models. This includes designing prompts, building LLM-based pipelines, retrieval-augmented generation systems, or developing applications that use LLM APIs.
• Ability to work across the full stack: backend (APIs, data pipelines), frontend (basic UI/UX for internal tools), and deployment (containerization, cloud services).
• Working knowledge of SQL and comfort working with structured data.
• Familiarity with version control (Git), CI/CD practices, and writing clean, reproducible code.
• B.S./B.S.E. degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Applied Math, Data Science, or a similar technical field.

Other Required Qualifications

• Proven ability to work alone and with teams in a dynamic, multicultural environment.
• Ability to rapidly prototype — going from an identified problem to a working tool in hours or days, and iterating based on feedback.
• Passion for improving lives through evidence-informed policy.
• Strong oral and written communication skills in English. Fluency in languages spoken in countries where IDinsight works is a plus.
• Strong values aligned with IDinsight's stated values.
• Ability to understand end-user needs and build solutions that people actually want to use — not just technically sound, but genuinely useful.
• Ability and interest in sharing knowledge, mentoring others, presenting work and reviewing the work of others.
• Deeply passionate about global development and improving lives in disadvantaged populations.
• Open-minded self-starter who will thrive while tackling new, unusual and unpredictable challenges.

Preferred Qualifications

The most competitive applicants will also have experience in one or more of the following:

• Experience living and working in developing country settings.
• Experience with API integrations and workflow automation tools (Zapier, Make, n8n).
• Experience building or deploying AI agents, custom GPTs/Projects/Gems, or workflow automations.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP), data integration workflows, or deployment pipelines.
• Experience with frontend frameworks (React, Streamlit, Gradio) for building internal tools.
• Comfort with basic data analysis and visualization.
• Experience working with SQL, custom APIs and AWS products like RDS, EC2, and Lambda.
• Familiarity with data science concepts (enough to work productively alongside data scientists and understand model outputs).

Nuts & Bolts

Location

This position is located in one of IDinsight's existing offices, with the possibility of extensive travel dependent on project needs. While we have some teammates working remotely, the most likely offices for this position are New Delhi (India), Dakar (Senegal) and Nairobi (Kenya). Preference will be given to those with pre-existing work authorization in these countries; however, IDinsight will seek work permits where possible for exceptional candidates.

Compensation

Compensation is commensurate with relevant experience and background and is competitive within the social sector. We are especially proud of the people-focused benefits we offer, including comprehensive international health insurance, including mental health coverage; paid vacation, sick, and parental leave; relocation benefits; a travel stipend; technology and work-from-home stipends; a professional development budget; and more. Please note, as a non-profit, we are unable to provide compensation similar to leading technology firms.

Start Date

The start date of this position is flexible, although there is the potential to start almost immediately. We expect a minimum one-year commitment, with regular professional development conversations and potential for a long-term career at IDinsight.

References

Applications should include three references, including email, phone, and title. Briefly state in what capacity you worked with each reference.

How to Apply

Please click the Apply for this job online button at the top right. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. The application asks various questions for us to get to know you and requires