Senior Staff Engineer - AI

About the role

You will own the technical vision and architecture for AI-powered features across our customer-facing products. This is a high-impact individual contributor role focused on designing and evolving robust, scalable backend systems, data platforms, and AI infrastructure that bridge product strategy with production-grade execution. You will set technical direction, influence multiple teams, and ensure our AI systems are reliable, performant, and safe at scale.

What you’ll do

• Define and drive the architecture for AI features and backend systems — including APIs, data persistence, streaming pipelines, and integration with existing services — ensuring they meet high standards for scalability, reliability, and maintainability.
• Lead the design of core AI infrastructure (LLM orchestration, context management, tool calling, multi-turn session handling, safety/guardrails) with a strong emphasis on production readiness.
• Partner closely with Product, Design, and other engineering teams to translate product vision into technical strategy; provide architectural guidance, feasibility assessments, and long-term technical roadmaps.
• Establish and raise the bar for engineering excellence: testing strategies, performance monitoring, observability, A/B experimentation frameworks, and operational excellence for AI systems.
• Mentor and grow senior engineers; drive technical decision-making across teams and contribute to company-wide engineering standards and best practices.
• Identify and resolve systemic issues in data modeling, database performance, and service reliability that impact AI feature quality and user experience.

What we’re looking for

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years focused on backend systems and distributed services.
• 2+ years of hands-on experience building and shipping AI/LLM-powered features in production customer-facing applications, with deep backend and infrastructure ownership.
• Expert-level proficiency in Node.js/TypeScript and modern backend technologies.
• Deep expertise in Postgres (advanced schema design, indexing strategies, query optimization, performance tuning at scale).
• Proven track record of designing and delivering complex backend systems end-to-end, including API design, data modeling, and system architecture that other teams build upon.
• Strong understanding of web technologies and frontend integration patterns to ensure seamless end-to-end experiences.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across teams and raise engineering standards.

Nice to Have

• Experience with real-time/streaming architectures (WebSockets, SSE, event-driven systems) and high-throughput data pipelines.
• Hands-on experience with Vercel, Next.js, or similar modern full-stack frameworks in production.
• Advanced use of ORMs/migration tools (Prisma, TypeORM, etc.) and database evolution strategies.
• Experience with feature flags, progressive rollouts, and safe deployment practices for AI systems.
• Background in data-intensive applications, ETL pipelines, or analytics/warehousing systems.
• Experience building B2C or B2B SaaS platforms with heavy database and AI workloads.
• Practical knowledge of AI safety, privacy, evaluation frameworks, and production guardrails.
• Cloud platform expertise (AWS/GCP/Azure) focused on scalable data services and AI infrastructure.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers and driving cross-team technical initiatives.

Why Join Us?

• Be part of a dynamic and fast-growing industry, working on impactful projects.
• Opportunities to grow and develop business analysis skills in a structured environment.
• Work closely with experienced professionals and cross-functional teams to gain exposure to different aspects of business and technology.

What We Offer

• Attractive remuneration package with performance-based bonus.
• Flexible working hours, 5-day work week, 14 days Annual Leave + Birthday Leave.
• Medical insurance and other competitive staff benefits.
• The opportunity to participate in the development of a large-scale, far-reaching program.
• Collaborative and supportive team environment
• Professional development and learning opportunities

About us

Virtual Gaming Technology is a Hong Kong software development company established in 2016, operating in the software industry with a focus on software development, web and mobile application solutions.

With the openness of the global information technology market expanding on a daily basis, VGT being an IT professional guarantees that our innovative and tailored software solutions to meet the growing demands of the global information technology market.

If this role appeals to you, we encourage you to apply and submit your resume along with links to your portfolio.