Senior AI Engineer

Buildern is the #1 Construction Management Platform that helps residential and commercial builders control projects from estimating to financials in one place. Our tools support teams with clear workflows, real-time insights, and a streamlined approach to day-to-day operations.

We are building AI into the core of our product. Not as a feature. As a system that changes how builders work every day. And now we are looking for a Senior AI Engineer who can turn AI into real, reliable product features. 

This role is focused on building production AI systems (LLMs, OCR, RAG). This is not a research role.

What You’ll Do

You will own how AI works inside Buildern.

You will design and build systems that:

• Generate estimates from plans, documents, and past data
• Extract structured data from invoices, bills, and PDFs
• Use company data (cost catalogs, past projects) to power AI decisions
• Help builders understand financials, risks, and performance

You will:

• Work with multiple LLMs and choose the right one for each task
• Build RAG pipelines using Buildern data (estimates, cost catalogs, files)
• Implement OCR and document processing pipelines
• Design APIs and services that integrate AI into our core product
• Handle real-world edge cases (messy data, bad PDFs, missing info)
• Optimize for speed, cost, and reliability
• Work closely with product and engineering to ship features fast

What We Are Looking For:

You have built AI systems that real users depend on.

You understand that demos are easy. Production is hard.

Must have

• 5+ years of software engineering experience
• Experience building production AI/ML systems
• Hands-on experience with LLMs and prompt design
• Experience with RAG (retrieval, embeddings, vector search)
• Experience with OCR or document processing (invoices, PDFs, etc.)
• Strong backend skills (Node.js or similar, APIs, system design)
• Ability to work with unstructured and messy data

Strong plus

• Experience with construction, finance, or similar domains
• Experience working with cost/price data or structured documents
• Experience optimizing AI cost and performance at scale
• Experience with both hosted and open-source models

How You Think

You don’t chase hype. You solve real problems.

You:

• Focus on outcomes, not models
• Choose simple solutions when they work
• Think about reliability, not just accuracy
• Care about how users interact with AI
• Take ownership and ship end-to-end

What Success Looks Like

In your first months, you will:

• Ship AI features that customers use daily
• Reduce manual work for builders (estimating, invoices, reporting)
• Improve accuracy and speed of key workflows
• Build a foundation we can scale across the product

Tech Stack

• Backend: Node.js
• AI: Multiple LLM providers + open models
• Data: Structured + unstructured (PDFs, plans, documents)
• Infrastructure: Cloud-based, scalable services

Why Join Buildern?

You’ll be part of a fast-growing startup building an industry-leading construction management platform with a modern tech stack. At Buildern, you’ll grow quickly, take ownership of meaningful projects, and collaborate with a passionate team shaping the future of construction tech. If you thrive on energy, innovation, and real responsibility—this is the place.