AI Developer

About Salvo Software Salvo Software is a global firm that provides cost-effective software solutions to guide enterprises and startups through digital transformation. With distributed teams across the US, LATAM, and India, we partner with clients to build high-performance, scalable systems that solve complex technical challenges. Our culture values innovation, ownership, and engineering excellence.

Role Overview We are seeking a highly skilled AI Developer with a strong backend and machine learning engineering background to design, train, optimize, and deploy LLM models in on-prem and offline environments. This role is deeply technical and hands-on, requiring expertise across Python ML stacks, model optimization, local inference frameworks, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) architectures, MCP (Model Context Protocol) integrations, and DevOps workflows tailored for offline systems. You will work closely with our engineering and product teams to build end-to-end LLM pipelines — including data preprocessing, supervised fine-tuning, model quantization, evaluation, RAG pipeline design, and deployment using local or air-gapped infrastructure. If you enjoy working with cutting-edge open-source LLMs, building context-aware AI systems, and designing reliable backend pipelines, this role is for you.

Key Responsibilities Core LLM Development • Train and fine-tune LLMs using supervised fine-tuning (SFT). • Work with open-source models such as LLaMA, Mistral, Qwen, and similar architectures. • Build LoRA / Q-LoRA pipelines for efficient fine-tuning. • Implement and optimize data preprocessing workflows, including tokenization and long-context handling. • Use and extend Hugging Face Transformers & Datasets for training and inference. • Parse and process structured and semi-structured data, including XML/XSD files. • Implement document parsing solutions for Office formats (python-docx, OpenXML).

RAG & Context-Aware Systems • Design and implement end-to-end Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines for document-grounded question answering and knowledge retrieval. • Build and maintain vector stores and embedding pipelines using tools such as FAISS, Chroma, Weaviate, or pgvector. • Optimize retrieval strategies including hybrid search, re-ranking, and chunking approaches tailored for domain-specific corpora. • Develop and maintain MCP (Model Context Protocol) server integrations to enable LLMs to interact dynamically with tools, APIs, and external data sources. • Design agentic workflows that leverage MCP to give models structured access to internal systems and context in a controlled, auditable manner.

Offline / On-Prem Model Expertise • Deploy, run, and maintain models fully offline and in air-gapped environments. • Perform model optimization and quantization (GGUF, GPTQ, AWQ, bitsandbytes). • Build and maintain inference systems using frameworks like vLLM, TGI, and Ollama. • Optimize GPU usage (CUDA, cuDNN, VRAM-aware batching). • Maintain local CI/CD pipelines for ML models without cloud dependencies. • Manage local model registries, versioning, and artifacts. • Ensure RAG and MCP components are fully operational in offline and restricted network environments.

Backend & DevOps • Build backend services in Python for ML training and inference workflows. • Work with relational databases (Postgres/MySQL) and vector databases for RAG storage layers. • Use Docker and Git for reliable development and deployment pipelines. • Use Azure DevOps for CI/CD, including local runners when applicable.