AI Specialist / Penang, Malaysia

As an AI Specialist, you will be part of congatec's growing AI Team and contribute directly to the introduction and scaling of AI across the company – with a strong focus on R&D and engineering. You will design, build, and operate practical AI solutions that improve engineering workflows in the development of COM modules, embedded software, and related technical processes.

You will work within a collaborative, internationally distributed team, building on a modern, primarily open-source-based AI ecosystem that includes LLMs, RAG pipelines, vector search, and the internally developed agent framework. Depending on your background and strengths, you will be placed in the area of the platform where you can deliver the most impact – from data engineering and model operations to R&D use case delivery, agent development, or user enablement.

This role is suited for a mid-level engineer with solid hands-on AI experience who is eager to build real-world AI solutions in a technically demanding environment.

Your Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and iterate on AI solutions that address concrete engineering and business challenges – with a primary focus on R&D workflows
• Contribute to the development and operation of the congatec AI platform, including RAG pipelines, vector search, LLM integrations, and agent-based automation
• Work with internal knowledge sources, technical documentation, and enterprise data to build and maintain AI-powered knowledge systems
• Implement and improve AI-assisted workflows for engineering teams working on hardware design, embedded software, component selection, documentation, and testing
• Evaluate, integrate, and operate open-source AI technologies in a secure, governed enterprise environment
• Contribute to the development of the agent framework and support the deployment of production agents
• Collaborate closely with the AI Specialist in Germany and the Senior AI Architect to align your work with platform architecture and standards
• Contribute input and implementation experience to the definition of best practices and technical documentation for sustainable AI adoption

Your Profile

• Degree in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Computer Science, or a related field
• Strong hands-on experience in applied AI / ML engineering or AI-focused software development
• Proficiency in Python is a must
• Solid understanding of LLMs, embeddings, RAG, vector databases, prompt engineering, and model evaluation
• Experience building and integrating AI services, APIs, and backend solutions
• Familiarity with open-source AI technologies and self-hosted deployments
• Good understanding of MLOps, model lifecycle management, and deployment concepts
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate across engineering, IT, and business teams
• Fluent in English (written & spoken)

Nice to Have

• Experience with LLM serving frameworks such as vLLM, Ollama, or Text Generation Inference (TGI); familiarity with GPU-based model hosting and inference optimization
• Experience with vector databases (e.g., Qdrant, Weaviate, Chroma) and production RAG pipeline design, including document processing, chunking strategies, and embedding pipelines
• Hands-on experience with model fine-tuning or training pipelines; familiarity with frameworks such as PyTorch, Hugging Face Transformers, or PEFT/LoRA approaches
• Background in embedded systems, firmware, EDA tooling, or hardware-related R&D environments; interest in AI-assisted engineering workflows for COM design or BIOS/firmware development
• Experience with frontend or full-stack development, UX design for AI-powered tools, or technical training and user enablement in engineering organizations
• Familiarity with well-known AI and ML platforms such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, Hugging Face, or comparable open-source frameworks
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, or containerized deployment of AI services
• Knowledge of enterprise AI platform components such as model gateways, chat interfaces, or internal knowledge systems