You’ve seen how companies like Amazon adopt artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to improve their business processes. You’re ready to do the same, but your internal tech team lacks the expertise to turn your ideas into reality. You know that hiring an AI developer is the next step, but with so many developers out there, making the right choice is all you seek.

Truly, finding the right AI developer can be like searching for a needle in a haystack. This is because you need someone with the right technical skill set and strategic insights to fit your business goal.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the process of hiring AI developers who can drive your business with innovations that bring transformative growth.

Understanding the Key Responsibilities of AI Developers: What They Do & What They Don’t

Behind the obvious definition, AI developers are basically experts or specialists who understand emerging technologies and how to apply them to drive innovative solutions for businesses. While expertise in AI is their primary responsibility, they are strategic thinkers and innovators. Other responsibilities include:

• Data collection and preprocessing
• Developing and maintaining AI strategies
• Algorithm development
• AI integration and designing models
• Machine learning
• Keeping up with trends and updates
• Testing and debugging AI models
• Collaboration and integration with existing teams

They also have different job titles, such as machine learning experts, data scientists, AI research scientists, robotics engineers, and system engineers. Although each title focuses on different solutions, they all work with businesses to align their values and goals with technological needs. This way, they can develop custom solutions such as chatbots using natural language processing, computer vision, data training, etc.

While they are expected to collaborate and integrate seamlessly with existing tech teams, they are not responsible for day-to-day IT issues, product marketing, manual field data collection, decision-making, or hardware maintenance.

Step-by-Step Guide to Hire AI Developers

Based on our collaboration with emerging technology experts like AI and machine learning developers, we know firsthand the challenges of hiring those who make a profitable addition to a team.

Below are proven expert guides on hiring AI developers for your team:

1. Define Your Project Requirement

   The first step to attracting the right machine learning developers is to be specific with your business needs, AI adoption goals, and project timeline. For example, an e-commerce business that wants to improve its platforms’ customer experience through AI may define its project scope as follows:

   • Our business needs to reduce product returns by offering personalized size recommendations.
   • We want to build an AI model that analyzes purchase history, product reviews, and customer data to recommend accurate clothing sizes. We want this feature launched before the next holiday sales campaign.

   Having specified your project details, you’ll be able to understand your existing tech team’s capabilities and skill gaps. You will also be able to identify the type of AI developers you need, whether industry-specific or skill-specific. This way, you can draft a perfect job description that attracts the right talent.

   Below is an example of an AI developer job description:

   • Brief Description of the Project & Business

   • AI Developer Job Responsibilities
     1. Design and implement machine learning models for size prediction
     2. Integrate AI solutions into our existing e-commerce platform (Shopify)
     3. Collaborate with the software, data, and engineering teams to ensure accurate and scalable delivery
     4. Deliver within six months before our holiday sales campaign launch

   • Job Requirements
     1. Proven experience in machine learning and AI development
     2. Strong skills in Python, TensorFlow, or similar frameworks
     3. Familiarity with e-commerce data and recommendation systems
     4. Experience with agile methodologies
     5. Solid experience in JavaScript

2. Source for AI Developers

   It’s time to search for AI developers. You can leverage sourcing options like freelance marketplaces, job boards, professional platforms (LinkedIn), developers communities, and AI outsourcing firms. You may also post about your need for AI/ML developers on your company social pages or inform friends and request referrals. However, you should know that each channel has pros and cons.

   Marketplaces and other independent channels like LinkedIn may be cost-effective and offer diverse talent pools, but it may be challenging to verify developers’ expertise. Also, there’s a higher tendency to hire developers with cultural differences and proximity issues. As a result, we strongly recommend options like AI outsourcing firms because these firms have a diverse pool of verified AI developer experts without you experiencing organizational misalignments.

   AI outsourcing firms like GAP are good options for accessing expert AI developers. GAP offers nearshore IT services with its team of experts in artificial intelligence for faster delivery and access to the market compared to competitors.

   Picking a channel for sourcing developers may be overwhelming. We recommend considering AI outsourcing firms especially if your organization has limited technical expertise.

3. Evaluate Candidates: Look out For Core Skills of the Future

   AI development firms often diligently vet their developers to ensure their skill sets are up-to-date and relevant. However, if you interact with the developer directly, you should evaluate their skill sets. Look for technical skills to ensure AI developers can adapt and tackle complex tasks. Consider future skills such as programming, prompt engineering, machine learning, database modeling, problem-solving, data processing, and deep learning. Other core skills to consider include:

   • AI and Big Data,
   • Technological skills,
   • Analytical thinking,
   • Self-awareness,
   • Motivation,
   • Leadership, and
   • Curiosity.

   Additionally, evaluate candidates’ portfolios and ensure they reflect your required expertise. Review case studies for project diversities to understand their versatility and flexibility. Once you’ve reviewed their portfolio and contacted qualified candidates, it’s time to evaluate their communication and suitability for the job with interviews.

4. Make the Interview Section Count

   In this stage, you conduct face-to-face interviews, asking practical questions to understand candidates’ thinking skills, work philosophy, and collaboration mindset. Therefore, you should maximize this opportunity.

   Ask questions that align with your business goals and allow you to build confidence in the developer. You may ask them to explain how they handle a real-life situation where a model didn’t perform as expected. Below are other examples of questions to ask AI developers during video interviews:

   • Why do you consider yourself fit for this role?
   • Can you share an example of when you recently learned to use an AI tool and how and where you applied it?
   • How do you manage working with team members, technical and non-technical, and stakeholders during a project?
   • What is your work drive? (This is to understand their key workplace success drivers.)

   Ensure you ask relevant questions based on your project requirements. Each question should be to discover a candidate’s values and how they align with your organization’s culture. You may use a hypothetical situation to understand how they would respond.

   Lastly, if conducting a video interview isn’t feasible, you may conduct a virtual technical interview by providing AI developers with paid trial projects related to the actual one.

5. Set a Realistic Budget

   AI developers’ salaries vary based on project complexities and requirements, the developer’s experience, location, employment type, and AI model. Area of specialization could also impact their expected rate.

   According to the Stack Overflow Developer Salary Survey 2024, AI developers’ median yearly salary is $70,888, with data science and machine learning experts getting $73,036 and data engineers $76,153.5.

   As of Feb 6, 2025, on ZipRecruiter, the average annual pay for an AI Developer in the United States is $129,348 annually. The top ten highest-paying states’ salary ranges are listed below.

   City	Annual Salary	Monthly Pay	Weekly Pay	Hourly Wage
   Nome, AK	$160,456	$13,371	$3,085	$77.14
   Cupertino, CA	$159,582	$13,298	$3,068	$76.72
   Mercer Island, WA	$158,417	$13,201	$3,046	$76.16
   Berkeley, CA	$158,379	$13,198	$3,045	$76.14
   Belmont, CA	$156,438	$13,036	$3,008	$75.21
   Sitka, AK	$155,823	$12,985	$2,996	$74.91
   Fremont, CA	$153,282	$12,773	$2,947	$73.69
   Mountain View, CA	$152,589	$12,715	$2,934	$73.36
   Menlo Park, CA	$152,431	$12,702	$2,931	$73.28
   San Francisco, CA	$152,395	$12,699	$2,930	$73.27

   Source: ZipRecruiter

   You can expect a freelance AI developer’s salary to differ from those working in-house. While AI developers’ salaries vary, ensure fair compensation without straining your budget.

6. Decide on Employment Type

   Your AI project model and business needs will determine your employment type. If the project is one-time, outsourcing or contracting may be a better alternative, but if it’s long-term and involves in-house processes, full-time employment may be best. Contractors frequently charge higher hourly rates, which can make contracting costly. This adds up since you are not liable for their tax, benefits, or training expenses.

   Full-time hires come in handy when expanding your tech team skill set with emerging technologies like AI. They become an internal team member, learn your processes, contribute, and integrate existing teams. Full-time hiring implies you’re responsible for benefits, upskilling, and other work benefits.

   Regardless of the job type, ensure AI engineers learn about your company’s goals and operations to meet expectations.

7. Establish Clear Expectations

   It’s not enough to invest resources in interviews. Make it count with an offer, a formal and legally binding document that clearly states their job roles and responsibilities, employment type, metrics for evaluation, work hours, and payment terms based on employment types.

   Help the developer to understand the specific outcomes you seek with their collaboration, measurable milestones, progress tracking benchmarks, and other company details. Define what success looks like, the milestones for measuring them, and how they are calculated. Encourage them to ask questions and contribute meaningfully to the team. If you use some project management tools, show them to facilitate communication and project tracking.

8. Establish Integration into Existing Team

   AI developers don’t work in silos because AI development requires collaboration with other technical and non-technical teams. Therefore, ensure smooth integration with an action-driven onboarding process, which helps the AI developer understand your company culture and best practices. Assign a mentor to guide them and explain your technical process standards, review procedures, version control repositories, project management tools, and a regular check-in schedule.

   During sprint planning, ensure the new AI developer participates in stand-ups to speed up their understanding of ongoing projects before they commence the AI projects. Encourage open communication and knowledge sharing to speed up team collaboration.

9. Professional Development Opportunities

   AI developers must stay updated with emerging trends and skills to improve relevance and contribute meaningfully to the team. You can develop an internal ongoing training program for your AI developers at a scheduled time. You may also encourage them to do an internal AI project to test new skills and AI tools to sharpen their knowledge.

   Encourage AI developers to participate in external communities and attend conferences and workshops. By setting up these professional development opportunities, you’re helping them reinforce new knowledge, motivation, and a sense of responsibility within the team. In the long run, you have a productive team that enables you to gain a competitive edge.

Contact GAP for Your Future-Ready AI Developers

Hiring the right AI developers requires time, money, and technical knowledge, but you can bypass these requirements by contacting AI development firms like GAP.

At GAP, we nurture tech experts who are lifelong learners, adapting to new AI tools and business requirements to facilitate strategic innovation. As an extensive tech company, we leverage cloud services, frameworks, and other innovative products to drive successful projects.

You’re only a call away from adding the right AI expertise to your team. Contact us today to meet skilled AI developers for your project.