Build AI that makes a difference

• Grow your AI engineering skills as you take ideas from prototype to production
• Permanent full-time position, flexible location

The Smith Family is a national children's education charity that works with children and young people to overcome educational inequality caused by poverty – so they can thrive now and into their futures.

About the role

We're looking for an AI Solutions Engineer who wants to do more than experiment with AI. You'll help us build it for real.

Our internal AI assistant, Sunny, is already in use supporting our front-line team members in their work supporting families and communities across Australia. We're looking for an early career engineer to help develop and build other AI tools for everyday work.

You'll join our Data & AI team and work alongside experienced colleagues to turn business needs into practical solutions. You'll select existing AI models and connect them to our data, knowledge and systems to build AI agents and applications. You'll also use techniques such as RAG to help these tools draw on the right information.

This is a hands-on role where you'll help take ideas from prototype to production and contribute to the engineering practices we use as our AI capability grows.

You'll work across a growing portfolio of AI initiatives to:

• Design and build AI agents, agentic workflows and RAG solutions that solve real organisational problems
• Create trusted data, semantic and knowledge foundations that allow AI solutions to work effectively with organisational information
• Connect AI to enterprise data and applications through APIs, tools, SQL and MCP
• Build with technologies such as Microsoft Foundry and Snowflake Cortex, including Cortex Agents, Cortex Search and Cortex Analyst
• Develop primarily with Python and SQL, working across structured and unstructured data
• Take solutions beyond proof-of-concept by building for quality, security, reliability, monitoring and supportability
• Evaluate AI solutions for accuracy, retrieval quality, groundedness and performance
• Build reusable components and patterns that make the next AI solution easier to deliver than the last
• Share what you learn and help grow AI engineering capability across the Data & AI team

About you

We're looking for a curious, practical engineer who enjoys building things, testing ideas and seeing projects through to delivery. This role is suited to someone with around 2-3 years of relevant experience in software, data or AI who's keen to learn new tools as the work evolves.

We welcome applications from early career AI engineers, including graduates with 2-3+ years of experience who have gained hands-on experience through work, internships or substantial projects.

You'll ideally bring:

• Technical depth across Python, SQL, data modelling and working with enterprise data
• An understanding of different AI models and how to choose one for a particular task, along with knowledge of prompt engineering
• Experience building applications with LLMs and Generative AI using Microsoft Foundry, Azure AI Search or related Azure AI services
• Experience with Snowflake, ideally including Cortex Agents, Cortex Search and Cortex Analyst
• Hands-on experience with RAG, semantic search, embeddings and AI agents
• Experience integrating solutions through APIs, data integrations, MCP or agent orchestration frameworks
• Experience taking software, data or AI solutions from prototype into production
• A self-starter mindset with the ability to take ambiguous problems, explore different approaches and own solutions through to delivery

You'll be joining us as we move beyond individual AI experiments towards repeatable, sustainable organisational capability. You'll have the opportunity to shape how we build AI, work with rapidly evolving technology and establish engineering patterns that can support the next level of intelligent solutions at The Smith Family.

And you'll do it in an organisation where the end goal isn't technology, it's about using data and AI to create capacity, improve how we work and help us make a greater difference for the children and families we support.

Our benefits

Employees are at the centre of The Smith Family's values and operations. By joining our team, you can expect to:

• Find balance; with flexible work options and opportunities to purchase additional annual leave
• Maximise your take home pay; with salary packaging, and save with discounts at retailers across the country
• Feel you belong; with a supportive, diverse and inclusive team with regular opportunities to connect with colleagues and community
• Feel you belong; with inclusive leave options, including paid parental, cultural and gender affirmation leave
• Thrive; with support for you and your family's mental and physical health including a complete care and safety platform, unlimited Employee Assistance and access to a huge range of fitness facilities with Fitness Passport

If you're an engineer who wants to build practical AI with purpose, committed to making a difference and this sounds like your next role, please click apply, we'd love to hear from you.

You may view the position description here.

Closing date: 25 November 2026

Due to the nature of this role, the successful candidate must be prepared to undertake a National Police Check and a Working with Children's Check.

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to principles of cultural diversity. Applications from people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent are encouraged.