Lead AI Engineer (Voice & LLM Systems)

AI Lead Engineer, Voice & LLM Systems

About Presto Phoenix, Inc.

Presto is the leading Voice AI company for restaurant drive-thrus, operating at scale in complex, noisy, customer-facing environments. As the AI partner to more than a dozen of the most iconic American restaurant brands, Presto is building one of the most impactful real-world applications of AI that directly impacts revenue, labor efficiency, and a magical guest experience for millions of people.

AI is not a feature at Presto — it is the foundation of how we build, evaluate, and evolve our products. We operate at lightning-speed iteration cycles and are solving some of the hardest problems in Voice AI. We are backed by Remus Capital, were a Y Combinator company, and are headquartered in Silicon Valley.

This may not be the right fit for you if you are looking for a traditional 9-to-5 environment. We move at the pace of AI. Change is constant, and roadmaps evolve quickly. Presto is for builders, experimenters, and problem-solvers who thrive in ambiguity, learn continuously, and are excited to shape the future of real-world AI alongside a high-performance team.

The Role

We are looking for an Lead AI Engineer in India to own and drive the core intelligence behind Presto's Voice AI platform. This is a senior, hands-on engineering leadership role at the intersection of large language models, real-time systems, and production AI, where you will set technical direction while remaining deeply embedded in the work.

You will lead a small team of AI engineers while continuing to contribute directly to production systems that power live customer interactions across thousands of restaurant locations. You are someone who can write code in the morning, mentor an engineer in the afternoon, and shape roadmap priorities with leadership in the evening.

Success in this role requires strong software engineering fundamentals, an AI-first mindset, leadership instincts, and the ability to move quickly from idea to production in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment.

What You'll Do

Lead and grow the AI engineering team

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to a team of 3–5 AI engineers
• Set engineering standards, review architectures, and guide technical decision-making
• Drive hiring, onboarding, and professional development of team members
• Partner with product and executive leadership to align AI strategy with business outcomes

Build and improve production AI systems

• Architect and deploy AI/ML models and LLM-powered systems used in real-time voice interactions
• Own the full lifecycle from prototyping to production deployment, monitoring, and optimization
• Drive improvements in latency, accuracy, scalability, and system reliability
• Define and enforce engineering best practices, testing standards, and deployment processes

Work with LLMs and modern AI tooling

• Lead the design of LLM-based systems using APIs or custom models
• Establish frameworks for prompt engineering, evaluation, and iterative system improvement
• Champion the adoption of modern AI development tools to accelerate the team's velocity

Own data quality and model inputs

• Define and oversee pipelines for cleaning, structuring, and filtering real-world production data
• Establish evaluation frameworks that ensure high-quality training, validation, and test datasets
• Drive a culture of rigorous measurement and continuous model improvement

Drive fast iteration cycles

• Lead technical reviews and architectural discussions with clear tradeoff analysis
• Contribute directly to code, prototypes, and experiments — this is a hands-on lead role
• Stay ahead of advancements in AI, LLMs, and applied ML and bring them back to the team

Collaborate across teams

• Work closely with engineering, product, and AI teams to deliver new capabilities
• Translate real-world business problems into practical and scalable AI solutions
• Communicate technical tradeoffs and system behavior clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• 5–8+ years of experience in AI/ML engineering or software engineering with applied AI
• 1–3+ years in a technical lead, staff, or senior individual contributor role with team influence
• Hands-on experience building or deploying LLM-based systems (APIs or custom models) in production
• Strong programming skills in Python; comfort across the full backend stack
• Experience with ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or similar
• Experience working with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and deploying systems at scale
• Strong understanding of software engineering fundamentals: data structures, systems design, debugging
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and drive technical decisions across a team
• Ability to work in fast-paced, ambiguous startup environments with a high degree of ownership
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; comfortable working asynchronously across time zones

Nice to Have

• Experience with real-time or low-latency systems
• Experience with speech, voice AI, ASR, or conversational AI systems
• Experience working with messy, real-world datasets at scale
• Experience building and operating end-to-end ML pipelines in production
• Prior experience at a high-growth startup or AI-native company

Why Presto

We move at the speed of AI. Change is rapid, experimentation is expected, and roles evolve alongside the technology. This is not a prescriptive environment — you will have real ownership over technical direction and team growth.

You'll work on real-world AI systems deployed at meaningful scale, directly impacting customer experiences and business outcomes for iconic American restaurant brands. As an AI Lead Engineer at Presto, you will shape not just what gets built, but how the team builds it.

Compensation & Benefits

At Presto, we don't just build the best Voice AI in the industry - we compensate the best people in it. If you're a top-tier AI engineer, expect an offer that reflects it. Compensation is determined by role, level, location, and individual experience.

Learn more at www.presto.com

Our Commitment

We value people from all walks of life and are committed to building an inclusive, equitable work environment. We strongly encourage candidates from historically underrepresented backgrounds to apply. Presto Phoenix, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer.

If you need an accommodation to access the application or interview process, please contact [Confidential Information].