Job Description

This is a full-time position based in Brisbane, with the flexibility to be based from our Sydney office for the right candidate.

Hello. We’re Virgin Australia. We’re the airline that’s always done things a little different. Our way. The Virgin way. We’re on a mission to make flying better than ‘nice’. And to do that, it takes a team of talented people who are passionate about customer experience, doing the right thing always, with a focus on safety – in the air, on the ground and in our workplaces. A team who values real diversity and inclusion, in a big brand with big ambitions.

What you’ll be doing

As an AI Engineer, you’ll join a growing AI team that is helping shape the future of Virgin Australia.

This is a unique opportunity to work within a newly formed AI CoE that is strategically aligned to the business and focused on taking AI solutions from concept through to production. Reporting to the Lead Engineer, AI, you’ll work alongside engineers, data scientists, product teams and business stakeholders to build reliable, scalable AI-powered products that deliver real business value.

In this role, you will:

• Build, test and support production AI applications, agentic systems and AI-enabled services
• Develop APIs, retrieval flows, tool integrations and workflow components using modern engineering practices
• Contribute to customer-facing and internal AI solutions that improve experiences, optimise operations and enable our people to do their best work
• Work with Product, Data Science, Platform Engineering and Security teams to translate designs into maintainable production software
• Build and maintain integrations with internal systems, third-party platforms and data services
• Implement testing, evaluations, monitoring and observability practices to ensure AI solutions are reliable and scalable
• Support debugging and root-cause analysis across application, model, retrieval, integration and data layers
• Participate in design reviews, code reviews, sprint planning and continuous improvement activities
• Contribute to responsible AI practices, including evaluation, guardrails, human escalation and model governance
• Support production operations through logging, metrics, tracing, incident management and operational support

This is a hands-on engineering role where you'll have the opportunity to work with modern AI technologies while helping establish the foundations of Virgin Australia's AI capability.

You’ll be great in this role if you have…

• Strong hands-on experience delivering production software and cloud-based systems in a ‘forward deployed engineer’ style role.
• Strong Python development skills and experience building APIs using frameworks such as FastAPI or similar.
• Experience developing backend services, integrations, data pipelines or distributed applications
• Exposure to applied AI technologies including LLMs, RAG, embeddings, retrieval systems, agentic workflows or tool/function calling.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including testing, debugging, version control and maintainable code practices.
• Experience working within Agile delivery teams and collaborating with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to diagnose issues across complex systems.
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative mindset.

Desirable

• Experience with AWS AgentCore and Strands.
• Experience with observability tooling, monitoring, logging and tracing
• Exposure to React and TypeScript

We’re committed to looking after you, with some of the best benefits and conditions in the industry – including (but not limited to):

• Discounted flights for you and your loved ones (including $1000 worth of travel credits per year)
• A flexible, hybrid work style. Work from home or the office, adapt your location to suit your style and needs
• One of Brisbane’s most admired head office locations, with South Bank train station, a supermarket, pharmacy, and lunch options downstairs plus a 5-minute walk to the Busway, a rooftop restaurant and onsite gym (with a low membership fee) and South Bank Parklands just across the road
• Discounts on travel insurance, lounge membership, car hire, accommodation, and experiences worldwide
• Cheaper hospitality, retail, technology, beauty and wellness services
• Free counselling and access to a well-being app to support your physical, mental, social and financial health
• ‘Dress for Your Day’ – enjoy the freedom to wear whatever makes you feel great for the type of work you do and the day you have ahead of you

When everyone is included, everyone wins

We’re all individuals. And we love that. That’s why we encourage applications from Indigenous Australians, people with disability, those from diverse cultural backgrounds, our friends in the LGBTQIA+ community, and anyone else who wants to join our family.

Ready to apply?

We’re ready to hear from you. Apply now.