AI Engineer
About ALX Kenya
ALX Africa, a non-profit organisation under the ALX Foundation, is dedicated to unlocking the potential of Africa\'s digital future. Formerly part of Sand Tech Holdings, we\'ve embarked on an independent journey to provide world-class tech skills training and career acceleration programmes. Our mission is to bridge the digital divide, upskill and re-skill talent, and create a generation of innovative leaders. By 2030, we aim to empower 2 million Africans to secure sustainable tech careers.
Description
Qualifications
Specific Responsibilities
Production AI Products
Own Ai products in production, stable, observable, with regressions caught by evals before learners find them.
Take the next prototype from working demo to maintained product, with evals built in from the start rather than bolted on.
Agent Architecture & Context Engineering
Design the context and tooling architecture for the agents, what is in context, when, and why.
Build and maintain the service interfaces agents work through, such as the application’s access to the learner’s artifact window.
Keep long-running, multi-step agents reliable under real-world learner behaviour, with clear failure modes and recovery.
Build the habit of testing what you ship — eval loops, regression checks, and fast iteration as a default way of working.
Skill Requirements – Essential
Python & FastAPI: strong, production-grade experience with real users.
Shipped LLM applications: at least one AI/LLM application you have shipped and can discuss in detail — what broke, how you found out, what you changed. Scale matters less than what you learned from its failures.
Agent frameworks: working fluency with agent frameworks (we use LangGraph; equivalents fine) and a real point of view on context engineering.
Testing discipline: the habit of testing what you build.
AI-native coding with demonstrated harness engineering experience
Desirable (not required):
React and full-stack range;
Langfuse or similar observability; knowledge graphs.
Educational/Edtech domain experience
Essential Traits for Success
You build with AI, not just use it, proper harnesses, eval loops, and fast iteration.
You can’t put an interesting problem down.
You figure things out fast; we don’t need an exact-spec match if you have the base and the initiative.
You favour non-standard evidence of skill, a portfolio of weird side projects beats a polished CV.
Person Specification/Attributes
Courage: Willingness to speak up, challenge the status quo, and embrace new challenges.
Humility: Openness to learning, seeking help when needed, and a focus on serving others.
Adventure: A passion for setting ambitious goals, tackling difficult tasks, and finding joy in the journey.
Initiative: Proactive problem-solving, a sense of ownership, and a willingness to go above and beyond.
Resilience: The ability to bounce back from setbacks, persevere through challenges, and emerge stronger.