Robots & Pencils

Design and ship production agentic AI systems, RAG pipelines, and supporting full-stack cloud services while setting engineering practices and providing technical leadership. | Requires 6+ years of software engineering, production GenAI and agentic AI experience, RAG and LLM evaluation expertise, Python and Node.js, and hands-on AWS GenAI and serverless services. | We’re looking for a Staff AI Builder to lead the design and delivery of AI/ML systems. This role is ideal for an experienced engineer who thrives on architectural decisions, can confidently own systems end-to-end, and contributes to technical leadership across the team. In this role, you will work as a key technical leader on a cross-functional team, defining AI architecture, leading model development and optimization, and solving challenging integration problems. You’ll be joining real, in-flight work where reliability, security, and scalability are critical. You’ll establish engineering standards, raise the bar on how we build AI systems, and contribute to the technical decisions that shape how our AI work scales over time. Why This Role Matters At Robots & Pencils, we design AI systems for a human world. Our name says it all. Robots and pencils means engineering paired with creativity, because every agent we ship has to work for real people in real workflows. That balance is baked into how we operate. Every role here contributes directly to that mission. Here, you shape how AI systems integrate into enterprise operations, how teams move at real velocity, and how products create measurable impact for clients and the people they serve. We ship production-ready AI in 30 to 45 days. That pace demands people who take ownership, lead with craft, and care deeply about what they put their name on. What You'll Do Agentic & GenAI Engineering • Design and build agentic workflows — reasoning loops, tool/function calling, and orchestration across single- and multi-agent architectures — with clear judgment on which pattern fits the problem and which doesn't • Build and maintain RAG pipelines: chunking strategy, embeddings, vector search (OpenSearch), re-ranking, and staleness/refresh handling for dynamic knowledge sources • Integrate with AWS Bedrock and Agent Core, including MCP-based tool design — writing tool descriptions precise enough that an orchestrator routes correctly every time • Write and iterate on production system prompts — structured role framing, output constraints, and few-shot design — not just prompt tinkering • Build eval and observability into every agent you ship: golden datasets, RAGAS-style metrics, LLM-as-judge (as both a runtime guardrail and an offline eval), and tracing via LangFuse/LangSmith or equivalent • Design for LLM failure, not just LLM success: retries with backoff and jitter, circuit breakers, fallback models, and a clear user-facing story when something upstream degrades Full-Stack & Platform Engineering • Build backend services in Python and Node.js, including serverless architectures (AWS Lambda, API Gateway) that support agentic workflows • Design DynamoDB single-table schemas — composite keys, transactional writes — for conversation state, agent memory, and session history • Support event-driven orchestration (Step Functions, SQS, EventBridge) for asynchronous agent operations, with an eye toward reliability and clean error handling • Contribute to frontend integration points so agentic features land cleanly for end users, and write clean, well-tested code across the stack • Support deployment, monitoring, and production troubleshooting in cloud-native environments (AWS, Docker), with guidance from senior engineers where needed Collaboration & Technical Leadership • Bring informed technical judgment to architecture discussions — naming the real trade-offs of a pattern (e.g., gateway centralization vs. latency, single- vs multi-agent design) rather than defaulting to what's familiar • Partner with product, design, and delivery leads across global teams to scope and ship features end-to-end • Mentor other engineers on the pod and help raise the bar on agentic engineering practices, including AI-assisted development tools like Claude Code • Own assigned features and releases end-to-end — including the unglamorous parts: debugging, hardening, and keeping production systems trustworthy What You'll Bring • 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, including meaningful time shipping GenAI/LLM-powered systems in production — not just prototypes • Real, hands-on depth in agentic AI: reasoning loops, tool/function calling, multi-agent orchestration, and a considered point of view on when single-agent design beats multi-agent, and why • Practical RAG expertise: chunking strategies, embeddings, vector databases (OpenSearch or similar), cosine similarity search, and re-ranking — you can explain the mechanism, not just the terminology • Experience building evaluation and observability for LLM systems: golden datasets, LLM-as-judge, RAGAS or comparable metrics, and tracing tools like LangFuse/LangSmith • Strong prompt engineering skills — you can write a production system prompt with real structure and constraints on request, not just describe the concept • Hands-on experience with the AWS GenAI stack: Bedrock, Agent Core, Lambda, DynamoDB (single-table design), S3, SQS, EventBridge, Step Functions • Strong Python and Node.js skills, with experience building full-stack applications and RESTful APIs • Solid understanding of production reliability patterns for LLM-backed systems: retries/backoff, circuit breakers, fallback models — as a bundle, not a single tactic • Experience with containerization (Docker) and cloud-native deployment • Comfort owning ambiguous, integration-heavy problems, and the ability to go a level deeper when someone pushes on your answer instead of staying abstract Helpful Extras And Unique Skills • Direct experience with Amazon Bedrock Agent Core — agent registration, MCP tool wiring, memory/session management, gateway provisioning • Experience in a regulated or high-stakes domain (education, healthcare, financial services) where evaluation rigor and reliability carry real consequences • Familiarity with workflow orchestration tools such as Step Functions, Sequencer, or similar state-machine-based systems • A point of view on LLM observability tooling, gained from actually running it in production rather than reading about it Our salary range is $176,612 - $243,680 CAD

Lead AI and digital strategy for major client engagements, build senior client relationships, and mentor strategists. | 7+ years in management consulting or AI strategy with expert knowledge of AI concepts and strong executive communication skills. | Robots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. We're all in on AWS, combining deep UX capability with senior engineering talent to get AI into production fast and keep it there. We’ve earned the trust of leaders across Consumer Products and Retail, Education, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Manufacturing and more, and earned a reputation as the nimble alternative to traditional global systems integrators. Founded in 2009, with delivery centers in Canada, the United States, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design. Our teams average 15+ years of experience. We move fast, sweat the details, and build things that actually ship. Position Overview We're looking for a VP, Strategist to define strategy and lead complex client engagements from the front. This role marks a meaningful shift from executing strategy work to shaping it — owning the strategic direction of major engagements, building senior client relationships, and contributing to how R&P's strategy practice grows and evolves. In this role, you will operate as the senior strategy voice on a cross-functional team, setting direction, aligning stakeholders, and driving outcomes from discovery through delivery. You'll partner closely with client leadership, mentor other analysts and strategists, and bring the depth of experience to navigate the most complex, ambiguous problems with confidence and clarity. Why This Role Matters At Robots & Pencils, we design AI systems for a human world. Our name says it all. Robots and pencils means engineering paired with creativity, because every agent we ship has to work for real people in real workflows. That balance is baked into how we operate. Every role here contributes directly to that mission. Here, you shape how AI systems integrate into enterprise operations, how teams move at real velocity, and how products create measurable impact for clients and the people they serve. We ship production-ready AI in 30 to 45 days. That pace demands people who take ownership, lead with craft, and care deeply about what they put their name on. What You’ll Do Craft & Delivery • Define AI and digital strategy for major client engagements, owning the opportunity portfolio from discovery through scale roadmaps • Lead complex, multi-stakeholder strategy engagements independently, driving alignment across executive, operational, and technical audiences • Build and present board- and executive-level business cases with clear tradeoffs, value quantification, and pragmatic recommendations • Design and lead evaluation (Evals) strategy to improve AI system effectiveness, accuracy, and calibration across client programs • Create reusable strategy accelerators including playbooks, reference architectures, evaluation templates, and agent patterns that help clients scale consistently • Define AI governance and responsible AI frameworks that fit the client's regulatory context, risk posture, and operational realities • Make ideas real quickly by building agent workflows, conversational experiences, and AI-enabled demonstrations using modern tools • Bring an AI-forward mindset to your daily work, using tools like Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, and Figma AI — and agentic frameworks as a core part of how strategy gets built and validated (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph, Vercel AI SDK, AWS Strands) Collaboration & Communication • Serve as a senior strategic partner to client leadership, building long-term trusted relationships grounded in business outcomes and honest counsel • Lead the most complex client sessions including executive briefings, strategic planning workshops, and multi-stakeholder alignment forums • Communicate strategy, tradeoffs, and recommendations with clarity and conviction at the executive level Leadership & Influence • Establish strategic delivery standards and ways of working on the engagements you support • Mentor senior and mid-level analysts, helping them grow their strategic thinking, client skills, and delivery impact • Contribute to business development, proposals, and the growth of R&P's strategy practice • Act as an escalation point on complex scope, prioritization, and strategic framing challenges What You’ll Bring • 7+ years of experience in management consulting, product strategy, AI strategy, or a related field • Expert-level understanding of AI concepts including LLMs, RAG, agentic systems, evaluation frameworks, responsible AI, and enterprise AI operating models • Demonstrated track record of leading AI and digital strategy engagements end-to-end across complex, multi-stakeholder organizations • Expert applied experience with AI tools for strategy, prototyping, and productivity (e.g., Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Figma AI) • Hands-on experience with agentic frameworks as a core part of strategy and prototyping work (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph, Vercel AI SDK, AWS Strands) • Experience designing evaluation strategies and guiding conversations on model calibration and AI system performance • Strong executive communication and advisory skills with a track record of influencing senior leaders across business and IT • Experience creating reusable strategy assets, practice accelerators, and reference architectures • Experience contributing to business development, proposals, or practice growth • Track record of mentoring strategy practitioners and lifting team quality and craft Helpful Extras And Unique Skills You’ll Do Well Here if You Are • A doer. You see something broken and fix it. You'd rather move on clarity than wait for certainty. • A fast learner who knows you don't know everything. The AI landscape changes weekly. You're senior enough to know better and curious enough to keep learning anyway. • Direct in a way that makes the work better. You give honest feedback. You'd rather have the hard conversation than blow smoke. • Obsessed with craft. You know genius is in the details. You ship exceptional, not perfect, and you don't put your name on work you wouldn't stand behind. • Built for ownership. You honor commitments, admit mistakes fast, and back your teammates when a decision costs something. No handoffs, no finger-pointing. • All in. You treat clients' businesses like your own. You take the work seriously without taking yourself seriously. • Resourceful when the budget, timeline, or team is tight. Constraints don't slow you down. They sharpen you. • Glad to be in the room with people who care as much as you do. Our teams average fifteen-plus years of experience. We hire people who push each other to do better work. The below range reflects the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future. An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, seniority, geographic location, performance, shift, travel requirements, sales or revenue-based metrics, any collective bargaining agreements, and business or organizational needs. The salary range for this role is $180.000 USD - $210.000 USD.  We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees. An offer of employment may be conditional upon successful completion of a background check in accordance with local legislation and our candidate privacy notice. Your current employer will not be contacted without your permission.  We are committed to ensuring equal employment opportunities for all job applicants and employees. Employment decisions are based upon job-related reasons regardless of an applicant's race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, marital status, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other status protected by law.