Entry Level Python Automation Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL

job purpose: The AI Automation Engineer will play a key role in advancing fairlife's vision of establishing a world-class Decision Intelligence ecosystem. This role centers on building AI agents and automated workflows that reason, plan, and execute tasks end-to-end - turning manual, repetitive processes into reliable automation across manufacturing, supply chain, and business operations. Working in a modern Microsoft Fabric and Azure environment, the engineer will design, develop, and deploy production-grade agentic systems that connect to enterprise tools and data to unlock operational efficiency and faster, better-informed decisions. 

responsibilities:  

• Design, build, and deploy AI agents that autonomously reason, plan, and execute multi-step tasks to automate business workflows 
• Identify manual, repetitive, and high-friction processes and re-engineer them as reliable, automated agentic workflows 
• Orchestrate single- and multi-agent workflows using frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, or AutoGen 
• Integrate agents with internal tools, APIs, databases, and enterprise systems - including via the Model Context Protocol (MCP) - to enable reliable, end-to-end task execution 
• Implement retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines to ground agents in fairlife's domain-specific data 
• Apply prompt engineering, tool and function calling, and rigorous evaluation to make agents accurate, reliable, and production-ready 
• Leverage MLOps/LLMOps best practices to deploy, monitor, evaluate, and continuously improve agentic systems in production 
• Build responsible-AI guardrails - safety, human-in-the-loop oversight, transparency, and compliance - into every automated system 
• Partner with the Senior Data Scientist and cross-functional teams to identify and prioritize high-impact automation opportunities 

skills/qualifications required:  

• 2+ years of relevant experience in AI engineering, machine learning engineering, software engineering, or related fields 
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI/Machine Learning, Engineering, or a related STEM field (or equivalent practical experience) 
• Proficiency in Python and experience building applications with large language models (LLMs) and foundation models 
• Hands-on experience with agentic AI frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen) and orchestration patterns 
• Experience with prompt engineering, tool and function calling (including the Model Context Protocol), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate, ChromaDB) 
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (Azure/Fabric, AWS, or GCP) for scalable AI deployment 
• Experience with MLOps/LLMOps practices and responsible AI principles, including monitoring, governance, and compliance 
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including API development, version control (Git), and containerization (Docker) 
• Strong communication skills for collaborating with business and technical teams 
• A bias toward automation: a track record of spotting repetitive, manual workflows and building tools or agents to eliminate them (preferred) 
• Experience in manufacturing and supply chain (preferred)  

how fairlife nourishes you: 

At fairlife, we believe in better - and that includes how we support our people. We offer a comprehensive suite of benefits and wellbeing resources designed to support you physically, emotionally, socially, and financially, both in and out of work. 

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, effective day one! 
• Supplemental health plans (hospital indemnity, accident, and critical illness insurance) 
• Paid Time Off to recharge and support work-life balance 
• Paid parental leave & adoption assistance (up to $10,000) 
• Parental support & family care benefits, including childcare resources and lactation support 
• 401(k) to support retirement planning with up to 9% in employer match 
• Wellness reimbursement (up to $500 for qualified wellbeing expenses) 
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for emotional wellbeing and work-life support 
• Company-paid life insurance and short-term disability 
• Employer HSA funding (for HDHP participants) 
• Tuition reimbursement (up to $10,000) and student loan repayment ($200/month) 
• Learning & development programs to unlock your full potential 
• Rewards & recognition, matching gifts, free product, and Business Resource Groups 

fairlife's nour!sh program is designed to meet you where you are - supporting your individual wellbeing journey while enabling you to do your best work every day. 

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This position requires current authorization to work in the United States. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.

position location: Chicago, IL 

reports to: Senior Data Scientist, Decision Intelligence 

travel requirements: 10% 

Exempt/Nonexempt: Exempt