About usKIWI is not just a company, it's a revolution. Since 2019, we have been passionately committed to creating innovative solutions that improve people's lives, helping as many smokers as possible quit smoking. With our headquarters in Croatia and a rapidly expanding international presence, our goal is to become the reference brand in Europe and a global benchmark in the e-cigarette industry.Our products combine cutting-edge design, innovative technology and a strong commitment to sustainability, proving that changing the world is possible, one step at a time.KIWI is looking for a Product Manager to join its international team.The roleWe're looking for a Senior AI Engineer to help us build and maintain our internal AI stack. Hands-on role with direct exposure to the tech lead: wide operational autonomy, but architectural and stack decisions are discussed and approved before go-live. You'll work closely with whoever drives the technical roadmap, not in isolation.Domains you'll work onItalian-language audio/voice AI pipelines on on-prem infrastructure (privacy by design)Autonomous LLM agent orchestration with cost, turn, and human-in-the-loop guardrailsOCR and classification on domain-specific documentsAI integration with the company's ERP and e-commerce platformsUI development from existing designs, accelerated with AI toolingCore technologiesPython 3.11+, async ecosystem, testing, structured loggingPHP at operational level, for working on existing e-commerce platformsApplied LLMs: Anthropic Claude (SDK and headless mode), Ollama, local runtimes on Apple Silicon, WhisperAgent tooling: design and implementation of custom MCP servers, resumable LLM session orchestration, integration with internal toolsItalian NLP: spaCy, Italian-specific sentiment and topic models, multilingual embeddingsFrontend: modern HTML/CSS/JSOn-prem deploy on macOS, secure remote accessAgentic Git workflow: parallel worktrees, issue-driven, PRs with mandatory human reviewCandidate profileMust Have4–6 years in AI/ML engineering or senior Python backend with recent LLM-in-production experienceAt least one NLP/AI pipeline shipped to production (not just prototypes)You've written at least one custom MCP server and can justify tool design, schema, and error-handling choicesComfortable with Anthropic/OpenAI APIs at tool-use and cost-management levelOperational PHP (debug, maintenance, small developments on existing codebases)Italian native or C1; fluent technical EnglishCollaborative approach: able to discuss and justify technical choices, accept reviews and scope revisionsNice to HaveYou've shipped local LLM runtimes (Ollama, MLX, vLLM) and know where they breakExperience with ERP platforms (Odoo or similar), even just on the integration sideExperience with Magento or PHP-based e-commerce platformsAbility to read Figma designs and translate them into frontend code; use of Figma MCP or AI-assisted design-to-code workflowsYou've designed autonomous agents with guardrails (cost cap, turn cap, human escalation)Engagement & compensationItalian VAT (P.IVA).Monthly retainer €5,500–6,500 + VAT (equivalent to €60–70k gross salary)Continuous consulting contract, annual renewal, 25 non-billed days/year by agreementHardware providedWork modeFull-time. On-site at Buje, Croatia required for the first 4–6 months (technical onboarding and shadowing). After this period, work mode will be defined by HR based on performance and operational needs.