What does “AI engineer” actually mean in your case?
I own the AI layer end to end. That means architecture and retrieval design, prompt engineering, RAG pipeline tuning, deployment, evaluation harnesses, observability and cost control — plus the backend the whole thing sits on. In my last two roles I was the sole owner of that layer, which is a very different job from bolting an API call onto an existing product.
How do you know a RAG system is actually working?
Because it is measured. I instrument RAGAS evaluation across context precision, faithfulness and answer relevancy, keep documented eval runs in the repo, and trace every agent node through LangSmith so token usage, latency and failure modes are visible in real time. On one production system that discipline took faithfulness from 62% to 85%+ — you cannot move a number you are not watching.
Do you only work on AI, or full-stack too?
Both, and that is deliberate. Three-plus years of full-stack delivery means the AI layer I build ships behind real APIs, real databases and real frontends. Node.js, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Next.js and React are all part of the same toolkit — and I have the Core Web Vitals and SEO work to show it isn't only backend depth.
How do you keep LLM costs under control?
Intelligent request routing, response caching and prompt compression, validated with A/B tests rather than guesswork. On production traffic that combination cut per-query API cost by 25% and average inference latency by 35% — cheap models for cheap work, expensive ones only where quality genuinely demands them.
What is your experience with open-source and self-hosted models?
Llama 3 and Mistral served via vLLM and Ollama, with LoRA/QLoRA fine-tuning for domain-specific tasks and GGUF/Q4_K_M quantization experiments for cost-sensitive deployments. Methodology and results are documented, not just claimed.
What sort of role or engagement are you looking for?
Senior AI / LLM engineering work where I own the layer rather than take tickets on it — production RAG, multi-agent systems, LLM infrastructure. I am based in New Delhi and work comfortably with distributed teams across time zones.
What is the fastest way to reach you?
Email — sri.sudhanshu1@gmail.com — or LinkedIn. I reply to anything with a concrete problem attached, usually within a day.