Senior AI Engineer

At Talkspace, we are committed to fostering a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and belonging-centered workplace where everyone can thrive while making a difference in mental health. Want to help over two million people receive quality mental healthcare? Come join our mission of getting therapy in the hands of everyone! We are looking for an experienced Senior AI Engineer to join our team. The Senior AI Engineer will be a pivotal technical leader, responsible for designing, building, and scaling the autonomous AI agents that form the core of our behavioral health platform. This role requires deep expertise in developing complex, multi-agent systems, leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) for reasoning, planning, and goal setting, and applying Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques to model and influence human behavior safely and ethically. You will drive the entire lifecycle of our agents—from developing cognitive architectures and interaction models to ensuring their robust, high-availability deployment and continuous learning in a production environment. Given the sensitivity of behavioral health, this role demands an exceptional focus on safety, ethical autonomy, transparency, and data privacy. The ideal candidate is a seasoned engineer who can bridge the gap between theoretical AI (specifically RL and planning) and real-world, scalable, and impactful user interactions. To work at Talkspace, you need to be as passionate as we are about our work, and excited to partner with us on delivering quality mental healthcare. Talkspace HQ is in NYC; this position is based in Eastern Standard Time. What You’ll Do Autonomous System Architecture: Design and implement the technical architecture for Sentia’s core AI agents, including the development of planning modules, memory/retrieval systems, goal-setting algorithms, and tool-use orchestration. Reinforcement Learning (RL) for Behavior: Apply advanced RL, Inverse RL, or related control theory methods to develop agents capable of adaptive, long-term intervention strategies that maximize positive user outcomes while minimizing risk (e.g., optimizing interaction sequencing, timing, and content). LLM Integration and Fine-tuning: Select, fine-tune, and deploy foundation models (LLMs) to power agent reasoning, natural language understanding, and empathetic, context-aware communication with users. Complex Interaction Modeling: Develop models for human-agent interaction (HAI), incorporating principles from cognitive science and behavioral economics to ensure agents are effective, trustworthy, and aligned with therapeutic protocols. Simulated Environments: Construct robust simulation environments for pre-training and testing agent policies, ensuring system stability and safety across a wide range of psychological and behavioral scenarios. Performance and Resilience: Optimize the deployment environment to manage the computational demands of multi-agent orchestration, ensuring low-latency decision-making and high system resilience. Technical Strategy: Lead the evaluation and adoption of new agentic frameworks, reasoning technologies, and system design patterns that position Sentia as a leader in autonomous behavioral health technology. Agent Evaluation & Observability: Design and implement comprehensive evaluation pipelines for multi-agent orchestration—including visualisations, trace-level analysis of LLM calls and tool invocations, offline evaluation against golden datasets, real-time production monitoring for behavioral drift and outcome correlation, guardrails, and human-in-the-loop annotation workflows. Establish metrics frameworks to assess reasoning quality, task completion, safety compliance, and task alignment across the full agent lifecycle. About You Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a highly quantitative field. Minimum of 5+ years of experience in a production software engineering environment, with at least 3+ years specifically focused on designing, implementing, and deploying complex machine learning or autonomous systems. Exceptional Python Programming Skills: Mastery of Python and its scientific libraries. Production MLOps Expertise: Demonstrated experience building and managing CI/CD pipelines for ML models and integrating them into service-oriented architectures (SOA). Autonomous/Agentic Systems: Strong theoretical understanding and practical application of techniques central to agentic AI, such as Reinforcement Learning (RL), planning algorithms, or complex decision-making systems. LLM Deployment: Hands-on experience fine-tuning, deploying, and managing Large Language Models (LLMs) in a production environment, including knowledge of prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and cost optimization. Software Engineering Rigor: Proven ability to write high-quality, maintainable, scalable, and well-tested production code. Proficiency with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP) and containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes). Benefits Comprehensive Medical, Dental and Vision plans coverage since day one Pre-tax benefits: HSA/ FSA 401k Retirement Savings Program with matching up to 4% Voluntary benefits including disability, basic life or pet insurance, etc. Monthly Wellness Stipend to promote mental and physical self-care Flexible PTO and Remote First Environment Regular team events, including Wellness Workshops and Team Building Events Free access to Talkspace products for you and one household member, as well as access to a friends and family discount! Compensation At Talkspace, we believe that pay transparency during the interview process is a critical part of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our salary bands are based on internal and external compensation benchmarks, which we regularly evaluate to ensure we pay competitively. The base salary range for this role is between $169,000 and $200,000. Within the salary bands, leveling corresponds to each candidate’s relevant experience, skills as assessed during the interview process, education, and applicable certifications. Why Talkspace? Talkspace is the world’s leading online therapy company, serving over 2 million users looking to begin their wellness journey through tele-health. According to the World Health Organization, close to 1 billion people worldwide live with a mental disorder, and on average more than 75% with mental, neurological, and substance use disorders receive no treatment for their condition at all. Additionally, one-third of the world’s population – 2 billion people – live in countries that spend less than 1% of their health budgets on mental health. Therapy is an universal need and it's our mission here to change the world by cultivating an intentional space for people to feel supported through quality care that is simple and accessible. Combining our passion for innovation along with our desire to help others overcome the stigma behind “getting help,” we are transforming the way patients find the right care provider, making an otherwise impossible feat easily conquerable. Our network of licensed, accredited, and board-certified clinicians are increasing access to mental health for our members through a myriad of high quality therapy services: anytime and for a fraction of the price. Dedicated to our mission, we are looking for candidates that want to bring their talents into a diverse “for purpose” space. If you’re equally as passionate about making quality mental healthcare accessible to all then Talkspace is the right place for you! EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER Talkspace welcomes and celebrates talent from all backgrounds, perspectives, and walks of life to foster an innovative and diverse workforce. We encourage you to apply, even if you don’t meet every qualification or if your path has been nontraditional — such as not completing a formal degree program, taking a career break, or having a prior criminal record — if you believe you could make a great addition to this team. Come as you are and learn about the exciting opportunities on our team. Individuals seeking employment at Talkspace are considered without regard to race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin, citizenship status, age, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, marital, parental, veteran or military status, unfavorable military discharge, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law. How do we define Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at Talkspace? Diversity Diversity encompasses the unique attributes of our employees as individuals. We value and embrace the richness arising from their varied backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences, which include, but are not limited to, age, ability, ethnicity, gender, race, and cultural background. Equity Equity refers to a fair and impartial workplace, aiming to ensure equal growth and advancement opportunities for all employees. This involves amplifying underrepresented voices, addressing unconscious biases, and providing inclusive, culturally competent mental health care. Inclusion Inclusion signifies the practice of granting equal access to opportunities and resources for all employees, particularly those who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized. It ensures that everyone feels a sense of belonging, value, support, and respect as an individual. Belonging Belonging reflects the affinity and positive relationships that develop among employees from diverse backgrounds when businesses actively promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.