Full Stack Engineer, AI Lab

We are an organisation that exists to drive progress. That's the "red thread" that connects everyone at The Economist Group (TEG). Our businesses share a devotion to innovation, independence and rigour in their fields of expertise. We empower people to understand and tackle the critical challenges and changes facing the world. Our analytical rigour, global expertise and evidence-based insights enable individuals and organisations to make sense of these shifts and chart a course through them.

We deliver analysis and insights in many formats to subscribers and clients in 170 countries through our four businesses, The Economist, Economist Impact, Economist Intelligence and Economist Education, which uphold our global reputation for excellence and integrity.

The role:

We are launching a new AI Lab—a small, fast-moving innovation unit focused on reimagining The Economist's journalism for an AI-driven world. This role will be central to prototyping and shipping early experiences that bring AI models into user-facing tools, particularly via web and mobile interfaces.

You'll ship products from zero-to-one and see your ideas directly influence how millions of readers interact with our journalism. If you enjoy working close to design, iterating fast, and building novel interactions across text, voice, and visuals, we'd love to hear from you. You'll be one of the first three engineers in a dedicated lab, working alongside the Tech Lead, Design Lead and Product Lead.

Responsibilities:

• Deploy and manage LLM endpoints and AI pipelines using AWS Bedrock, EC2, and SageMaker
• Integrate OpenSearch indexes via Bedrock Knowledge Bases to support RAG workflow
• Build and maintain secure internal APIs to serve fine-tuned or OSS models
• Support in configuring and monitoring AI model usage, cost, and performance across Bedrock and custom-hosted models
• Work with the Technical Lead/AI engineer/ to integrate STT/TTS and knowledge retrieval pipelines into internal tools and prototypes
• Partner directly with our Full Stack (Audio & Interaction) Engineer to deploy and scale the novel user-facing prototypes they build
• Design and build a flexible, secure, and scalable MLOps foundation that accelerates the Lab's ability to experiment and ship new AI-powered experiences.

Who you are:

• Experience in backend or full-stack engineering roles, ideally in environments focused on rapid iteration or experimentation
• Strong experience with AWS infrastructure, including EC2, S3, Lambda, IAM, and optionally SageMaker or Bedrock
• Hands-on experience with OpenSearch, including using it as a vector index (e.g. via Bedrock Knowledge Bases) to power retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
• Experience deploying and maintaining LLM inference pipelines, including open-source models
• Proficient with Python, and comfortable using FastAPI (or similar frameworks) to build internal APIs and lightweight backend systems
• Familiarity with containerisation (Docker) and CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, AWS CDK, or Terraform)
• Comfort setting up observability (e.g. logs, alerts, cost tracking) to support internal AI usage and performance
• Strong understanding of cloud-based API security, role-based access control, and general DevSecOps principles
• Collaborative and communicative — able to work in close partnership with AI engineers, frontend engineer, and product and design leads in a small, high-trust team

Additional preferred skills:

• Experience working in an R&D team, innovation lab, or early-stage startup where priorities shift and ambiguity is embraced
• Familiarity with LLM evaluation, preference modeling, or dataset versioning (even if they don't own that directly), or have implemented LangSmith.
• Exposure to voice-first or conversational interfaces, including integrating TTS/STT into prototypes or production systems
• Interest in how GenAI infrastructure will evolve — and the trade-offs between managed APIs (like Bedrock) and open-source alternatives
• A pragmatic, experimental mindset — you value velocity and safety over perfection, and enjoy exploring unfamiliar territory
• An interest in working on journalistic or editorial products, where tone, trust, and clarity are core product values

More about the Economist AI Lab:

We believe AI will fundamentally change both our business and the world around us, making our mission more vital than ever. While we already use AI across The Economist Group, we think the changes to come in the next few years could be even more far-reaching.

This is why we are launching the Economist AI Lab–to reimagine Economist journalism for an AI-driven world. It is a deliberately ambitious project, exploring new ideas and possibilities beyond our existing AI initiatives and engineering roadmap.

A small, dedicated team, the AI Lab will serve as an innovation engine for The Economist –investigating bold new ideas that will shape how we serve our global audience in the future.

We are an innovative organisation that encourages the use of technology. We recognise that candidates may utilise AI tools to support with their job application process. However, it is essential that all information you provide truthfully and accurately reflects your own experience, skills, and qualifications.

Our benefits package is designed to support your wellbeing, growth, and work-life balance. It includes a highly competitive pension or 401(k) plan, private health insurance, and 24/7 access to counselling and wellbeing resources through our Employee Assistance Program.

We also offer a range of lifestyle benefits, including our Work From Anywhere program, which allows you to work from any location where you have the legal right to do so for up to 25 days per year. In addition, we provide generous annual and parental leave, as well as dedicated days off for volunteering and even for moving home.

You will also be given free access to all The Economist content, including an online subscription, our range of apps, podcasts and more.