AI Engineer / AI Software Engineer Contract Jobs

AI Engineer / AI Software Engineer job vacancy in Cape Town.

PBT Group is looking for pragmatic AI Engineers / AI Software Engineers to join a growing technology team focused on building practical, AI-enabled solutions that improve business operations.

This is not a research or model-training role. We are looking for strong software developers who can use Large Language Models (LLMs) to build and deploy real-world applications, internal tools, workflow automation and intelligent integrations across the business.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Build and deploy AI-powered applications, internal tools and operational solutions.
• Develop AI agents, assistants and LLM-enabled workflows using platforms such as OpenAI, Anthropic Claude or similar.
• Design and implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions using company and business data.
• Integrate AI solutions with SQL databases, REST APIs, Microsoft 365, CRM and contact-centre platforms.
• Implement tool/function calling and AI-driven workflow automation.
• Develop dashboards and business-facing applications incorporating AI capabilities.
• Apply prompt engineering techniques and continuously evaluate and improve AI output quality.
• Consider data security, privacy and governance when connecting AI solutions to internal systems.
• Work closely with business and technical stakeholders to identify opportunities where AI can solve real operational problems.
• Build, test, deploy and support production-ready solutions.

What We’re Looking For:

• Strong software development background using Python and/or TypeScript.
• 2+ years of hands-on experience working with LLM APIs such as OpenAI, Anthropic Claude or similar.
• Proven experience shipping working AI-enabled products or features.
• Practical experience with:
  • AI Agents & Assistants
  • Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
  • Tool / Function Calling
  • Prompt Engineering
  • LLM evaluation and output optimisation
  • API and system integrations
• Experience integrating applications with SQL databases, REST APIs and enterprise/business platforms.
• Strong understanding of software development principles and building production-ready applications.
• Ability to work pragmatically and independently, with a focus on delivering solutions that create measurable business value.
• Advantageous:
  • Telecoms experience.
  • Contact-centre / customer-service technology experience.
  • Experience working with Microsoft 365, CRM or call-centre platforms.
  • Experience building workflow automation and internal business tools.

The Ideal Candidate:

We are looking for builders rather than researchers — engineers who have actually taken AI concepts from idea through to a working solution.

If you are a strong software developer who understands how to leverage LLMs, agents, RAG and integrations to solve real business problems, this is an opportunity to work on a growing portfolio of practical AI use cases.