SENIOR AI PRODUCT ENGINEER (1043) DEPARTMENT OF TECHNOLOGY

We are a small mission-driven Emerging Technologies team leading responsible AI adoption across City government within DT.

We work on:

1. Testing and making AI tools available to other departments
2. Setting technical standards for safe and responsible AI use and
3. Building and experimenting with prototypes that demonstrate the potential of applied AI

As our AI Product Engineer your primary focus will be designing and building prototypes that showcase how AI can solve real challenges in government. Youll create end-user applications that surface retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and LLM features making them usable transparent and trustworthy.

Because we are a small team youll also need to flex into other areas: contributing to standards supporting tool evaluations and helping translate AIs potential to departments across the City. This role is hands-on creative and highly collaborative ideal for someone who enjoys working at the intersection of technology product and impact.

Position Responsibilities

• Prototype and ship applied AI tools (chat interfaces knowledge assistants workflow integrations) that demonstrate new use cases for City departments.
• Design and implement front-end applications to surface RAG/LLM outputs with transparency and usability
• Collaborate with the team to connect prototypes to retrieval pipelines APIs and model orchestration.
• Experiment rapidly: run pilots gather feedback from staff and iterate on features to improve adoption.
• Flex into other areas of the teams mandate as needed contributing to tool evaluations standards-setting and AI adoption guidance.
• Help make technical choices that balance innovation safety and responsible use in a public sector context.

Qualifications :

Education:

An associate degree in computer science computer engineering information systems or a closely related field from an accredited college or university OR its equivalent in terms of total course credits/units i.e. at least sixty (60) semester or ninety (90) quarter credits/units with a minimum of twenty (20) semester or thirty (30) quarter credits/units in one of the fields above or a closely-related field.

Experience:

Three (3) years of experience analyzing installing configuring enhancing and/or maintaining the components of an enterprise network.

License and Certification:

Substitution:

Additional experience as described above may be substituted for the required degree on a year-for-year basis (up to a maximum of two (2) years). One (1) year is equivalent to thirty (30) semester units/ forty-five (45) quarter units with a minimum of 10 semester / 15 quarter units in one of the fields above or a closely related field.

Completion of the 1010 Information Systems Trainee Program may be substituted for the required degree.

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS:

Must-Have Skills

• Strong front-end engineering and UX background and modern design frameworks.
• Proven experience building interactive prototypes or applications (e.g. chat apps dashboards or AI-powered tools).
• Familiarity with AI/LLM APIs and RAG workflows.
• Comfort working across product and engineering boundaries listening to users iterating quickly and experimenting with design ideas.
• Adaptability and willingness to wear many hats in a small high-impact team.

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Some backend experience.
• Exposure to AI governance safety or public sector requirements (privacy accessibility compliance).
• Experience contributing to standards documentation or technical adoption guides.
• Background in rapid prototyping environments (startups labs hackathons).

Who You Are

• Motivated by public impact and eager to shape how AI can responsibly improve services for residents.
• A builder and experimenter who takes a human-centered approach and loves creating prototypes that make AI real and useful.
• Excited by the challenge of making AI safe transparent and practical in government.
• Flexible and collaborative comfortable stepping outside your core skill set to help the team succeed.
• Keen to stay current with emerging technologies

Note:  Applicants must meet the minimum qualification requirement by the final filing date unless otherwise noted. 

One-year full-time employment is considered equivalent to 2000 hours (2000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40hour work week). Any overtime hours that you work above forty (40) hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment. 

Additional Information :

• Information About the Hiring Process 
• Conviction History 
• Employee Benefits Overview 
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker 
• ADA Accommodation 
• Veterans Preference 
• Right to Work 
• Copies of Application Documents 
• Diversity Statement 

Applicants will receive a confirmation email from that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received. 

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and therefore it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and @). 

Analyst Information:If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process please contact the analyst at

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex race age religion color national origin ancestry physical disability mental disability medical condition (associated with cancer a history of cancer or genetic characteristics) HIV/AIDS status genetic information marital status sexual orientation gender gender identity gender expression military and veteran status or other protected category under the law.

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time