Job Description

Job Description

Job Description

Position: AI Engineer II

Location/Department: Richmond Headquarters/Information Systems

Status: Full-Time/ Salaried Exempt

Our Company

Universal is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, and is the leading global leaf tobacco supplier. Tobacco sourcing and processing has been the Company's principal focus since its founding in 1918. The largest portion of the Company's business involves procuring and processing flue-cured, burley, and dark air-cured leaf tobacco for manufacturers of consumer tobacco products. Over the past few years, Universal has expanded its business through a series of acquisitions to develop a plant-based ingredients business segment to support the food and beverage markets which will provide future growth opportunities for Universal. We are now a global business-to-business agri-products supplier to consumer product manufacturers, that sources and processes leaf tobacco and plant-based ingredients. Through our plant-based ingredients platform, we provide a variety of value-added manufacturing processes to produce high-quality, specialty vegetable- and fruit-based ingredients as well as botanical extracts and flavorings for human and pet food end markets.

Universal conducts business in over 30 countries on five continents and employs over 25,000 permanent and seasonal workers. Domestically, Universal employs over 1,000 permanent and seasonal workers, and its revenues ending March 31, 2024, were $2.75 billion.

For more information on Universal, visit our website at

Summary

As an AI Engineer II at Universal, you will lead the development of advanced AI models and systems that solve complex business challenges. You will work independently and collaboratively to design, deploy, and optimize production-grade AI solutions, while mentoring junior engineers and contributing to strategic technical decisions. This role requires strong expertise in machine learning, big data, and cloud technologies.What You’ll Be Doing (Essential Duties)

• Architect and implement scalable AI systems using advanced machine learning techniques.
• Lead model development, training, evaluation, and deployment for production environments.
• Optimize system performance through rigorous testing, tuning, and monitoring.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to align AI solutions with business goals and technical requirements.
• Guide junior engineers through code reviews, technical mentorship, and best practices.
• Develop reusable components and contribute to internal AI frameworks and libraries.
• Stay current with AI research and emerging technologies to inform solution design.
• Ensure compliance with data governance, security, and ethical AI standards.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 3–5 years of experience in AI/ML engineering, with proven success in deploying scalable solutions.
• Proficiency in programming languages such as .net, Python, or R.
• Experience with cloud platforms and big data tools.
• Strong understanding of model lifecycle, MLOps, and performance optimization.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills.
• Experience with SQL or NoSQL databases
• Strong understanding of data governance, privacy, and ethical AI
• Ability to write clean, maintainable code and follow coding standards
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Effective communication and collaboration abilities.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with edge AI or deploying models to production environments
• Exposure to MLOps tools and practices.
• Experience with RESTful APIs or microservices
• Familiarity with containerization (Docker)
• Experience mentoring junior engineers or interns
• Experience with business intelligence tools (e.g., Power BI)
• Agile development experience.

Benefits
We offer a wide range of market-competitive total rewards that include 401(k) match, pension, merit increases, paid holidays, medical, dental, life, vision, short and long-term disability benefits, and tuition assistance to name a few.

EOE M/F/Disabled/Vet Employer
All applicants must be authorized to work in the United States.

Job Tags

Permanent employment, Full time, Temporary work, Seasonal work,

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