AI Engineer

Company Overview 

Zicasso is a leading luxury travel company that creates personalized, life-enriching experiences for discerning travelers. Founded in Silicon Valley, our unique approach to travel blends cutting-edge technology and the unsurpassed destination expertise of our top travel specialists worldwide. 

As a member of our team, you'll contribute to creating experiences that consistently earn us thousands of 5-star reviews. You'll be part of a company recognized as "Best in Travel" by TRAVEL+LEISURE magazine and regularly featured in notable publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC, and CNN. By joining Zicasso, you'll play a key role in bringing travel dreams to life – pushing the boundaries of what's possible in luxury travel experiences.

As a fully remote company spanning five continents, we foster a dynamic, progressive global work environment that values creativity, initiative, and continuous learning. We're seeking passionate, data-driven individuals who thrive in a high-performance environment and are eager to contribute to our innovative company culture underpinned by the pursuit of excellence, integrity, and teamwork.

Our global team comes together bi-annually for an international company retreat in various locations, providing a unique opportunity to share ideas, collaborate in person, and strengthen our culture. This event embodies our commitment to both professional growth and the transformative power of travel.

Join us in shaping the future of luxury travel while working towards our vision: to create a more connected humanity through travel. To learn more, visit www.zicasso.com .

The Role

Zicasso is seeking a highly skilled and innovative AI Engineer to spearhead the design, development, and deployment of cutting-edge artificial intelligence solutions. In this pivotal role, you will leverage AI to directly support our business objectives and enhance the personalized luxury travel experience for our customers. This position demands an in-depth understanding of the entire machine learning lifecycle, from data strategy and model development to scalable deployment and ongoing optimization. Crucially, you will need to effectively communicate complex technical findings and their business implications to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

This is an international, fully-remote, freelance contractor position, working from home, at a location outside of the United States. We are particularly seeking candidates who are based in Latin America.

There is flexibility in your work hours but we expect that you will generally maximize your overlap with California, eg. until 3pm Pacific Time Zone (GMT -8).

The work will all be conducted in English.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, develop and implement artificial intelligence systems, including machine learning and deep learning models. 
• Develop and deploy AI solutions using Python and other relevant languages such as Java, C++, or Scala, depending on project needs.
• Research, implement, and adapt appropriate AI/ML algorithms, techniques, and tools for specific problem domains, staying abreast of the latest advancements in AI/ML. 
• Identify and leverage valuable data sources, and establish efficient data mining/collection processes.
• Develop and implement data preprocessing techniques for structured and unstructured data to ensure data quality and suitability for AI models and addressing potential biases.. 
• Analyze large datasets to identify, interpret, and articulate meaningful trends, patterns, and insights relevant to AI applications. 
• Develop comprehensive dashboards and visualizations to communicate AI outputs, insights, and recommendations to internal teams.
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams (product, engineering, marketing, and data) to integrate AI solutions into production systems and establish robust Model Life Cycle Management (MLOps) practices for continuous integration, deployment, and monitoring.
• Monitor, evaluate, and fine-tune deployed AI models for performance, accuracy, and reliability.
• Contribute to defining the AI roadmap and strategy for Zicasso.

Required Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience). Preferred: Master's or Ph.D. in a relevant quantitative field.
• 5+ years of professional experience in software engineering, with a strong foundation in scalable system design.
• 2+ years of experience building and deploying machine learning models in production environments, demonstrating a clear understanding of MLOps principles.
• Proven expertise in artificial intelligence concepts, machine learning, deep learning, predictive modeling, and natural language processing (NLP). 
• Deep proficiency in programming languages relevant to AI development, such as Python, and ideally experience with others like Java, C++, or Scala, as well as. hands-on experience with major deep learning frameworks.
• Experience with data visualization and BI tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI, or similar).
• Experience working in cloud environments such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Experience with MLOps tools and platforms for model versioning, deployment, and monitoring.
• Strong understanding of data warehousing concepts and experience with large-scale data processing technologies.
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Self-motivated, with the ability to work independently and as part of a collaborative team

Preferred Skills:

• Knowledge and understanding of digital advertising platforms (e.g., Google Ads, Meta Ads, Bing Ads) and their data structures.
• Familiarity with data analytics platforms like Google Analytics 4 and BigQuery
• Experience with Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI applications.

What We Offer

• Remote work from your home base and flexible hours that allow you to enjoy a great work-life balance.
• Innovative, fast-paced and collaborative culture that values diverse voices and opinions.
• Learning and development annual stipend.
• Two company-sponsored business trips each year at international destinations we serve!