Job Title: AI Platform Engineer

Location: Hengelo – Hybrid

Languages: Dutch & English

Employment Type: Full-time

Role Overview

Are you a DevOps or Platform Engineer looking to transition into the world of Generative AI, within one of the most secure software environments in the Netherlands? At Thales Nederland in Hengelo, we are building cutting-edge AI ecosystems that operate in fully air-gapped infrastructures. As an AI Platform Engineer, you will be the linchpin ensuring that our software engineers and systems can securely leverage local language models, advanced multi-agent networks, and context-based information retrieval systems. Since we cannot rely on public cloud APIs, we design, host, and manage everything on-premise on our own high-performance GPU clusters.

Key Responsibilities

• AI Container Application Management: You will be responsible for deploying, updating, and maintaining critical AI tools and developer tools within on-premise container orchestration platforms. Your focus will be on ensuring optimal performance, resource allocation, and high availability for development teams.
• Air-Gapped RAG & Codebase Infrastructure: You will build and maintain the on-premise Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) infrastructure. This ensures that applications can securely and rapidly retrieve context from internal codebases via local data pipelines, text segmentation (chunking), and vector indexing.
• On-Premise Model Routing & Lifecycle: You will set up tooling for local model serving and help develop a flexible routing layer. This enables applications within the closed network to dynamically switch between different local models based on the complexity of the task.
• Agent Orchestration & Tooling: You will support the setup of local frameworks for multi-agent systems (e.g., specialized code, architecture, and debugging agents). You will also assist in integrating local memory systems and interfaces that allow agents to call external tools.
• Air-Gapped Observability: You will implement monitoring and tracing dashboards that operate entirely within the local network. These will track token usage, processing time (latency), and infrastructure costs per team or user—without any data leakage.
• Strict AI Safety & Security Rails: In collaboration with our security experts, you will implement robust guardrails and security infrastructures to prevent malicious inputs (e.g., prompt injections) and ensure agents adhere strictly to data compartmentalization and authorization levels.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• On-Premise & DevOps Experience: Strong experience with Linux environments, containerization, and container orchestration in an on-premise data center setting.
• Software Engineering: Strong programming skills in Python (experience with other system languages or scripting is a plus) and experience building and integrating local APIs.
• GenAI Interest & Conceptual Knowledge: You understand the theory behind vector indexing, embeddings, and the functioning of large language models (LLMs). Ideally, you have experimented with open-source tools on a hobby or project basis.
• Languages: Excellent proficiency in English, both written and spoken. Dutch is preferred.
• Security Clearance: Since you will be working on defense-related projects, passing a national security screening (Verklaring van Geen Bezwaar) is mandatory.

What Thales Offers

• A unique opportunity to pioneer state-of-the-art Generative AI technology in a high-security enterprise environment.
• A flexible hybrid work model with a healthy balance between remote work and collaboration at the High Tech Systems Park in Hengelo.
• Excellent employment conditions under the CAO Metalelektro, including a highly competitive salary and 40 vacation days per year (27 standard vacation days + 13 ADV days).
• Space and budget to further develop yourself into an expert in AI infrastructure.

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