AI Architect

About The Role ONDC is building the next generation of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for commerce. Our strategic initiatives include: VyapaarLM Cognitive Infrastructure for CommerceDigiCatalog Digital Product InfrastructureGlobal Cache RepositoryAgentic Commerce Platforms Our mission is to make intelligence, product information, and commerce capabilities accessible, affordable, and useful for millions of businesses and consumers across India. The Opportunity We are looking for a hands-on Principal Engineer to help architect and build ONDC's next generation of intelligent systems. This is not a traditional architect role. At ONDC, architects build. You will work closely with the CTO and AI leadership to design and implement systems spanning: Small Language Models (SLMs)Agentic SystemsKnowledge ArchitecturesCommerce Intelligence PlatformsMultilingual AIDistributed AI Infrastructure What You'll Do Architect and build AI-powered platforms and intelligent systems for ONDC.Design and develop SLM training, fine-tuning, distillation, and deployment pipelines.Build deep knowledge and reasoning systems that combine structured, unstructured, and real-time commerce data.Design agent orchestration frameworks for buyers, sellers, and ecosystem participants.Drive cost-efficient, scalable, and reliable AI infrastructure suitable for India-scale adoption.Contribute hands-on through architecture, coding, reviews, experimentation, and production deployment. What We're Looking For 8-12 years of strong software engineering and research experience.Proven track record of building large-scale distributed systems.Hands-on experience building or training Small Language Models (SLMs), LLM-based systems, or advanced AI platforms.Strong understanding of neural networks, transformers, knowledge systems, model distillation, fine-tuning, and inference optimization.Experience designing intelligent orchestration systems, agents, or complex decision-making platforms.Ability to reason deeply about scale, latency, reliability, accuracy, privacy, and cost.Strong ownership, curiosity, and builder mindset. This role is best suited for someone who enjoys building foundational intelligence systems rather than simply integrating AI APIs. Why ONDC Few opportunities allow you to work simultaneously on: AI & Agentic SystemsCommerce InfrastructurePopulation-Scale TechnologyDigital Public InfrastructureReal-World Economic Impact If you are excited about building India's cognitive infrastructure for commerce, we would love to talk. About The Role ONDC is building the next generation of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for commerce. Our strategic initiatives include: VyapaarLM Cognitive Infrastructure for CommerceDigiCatalog Digital Product InfrastructureGlobal Cache RepositoryAgentic Commerce Platforms Our mission is to make intelligence, product information, and commerce capabilities accessible, affordable, and useful for millions of businesses and consumers across India. The Opportunity We are looking for a hands-on Principal Engineer to help architect and build ONDC's next generation of intelligent systems. This is not a traditional architect role. At ONDC, architects build. You will work closely with the CTO and AI leadership to design and implement systems spanning: Small Language Models (SLMs)Agentic SystemsKnowledge ArchitecturesCommerce Intelligence PlatformsMultilingual AIDistributed AI Infrastructure What You'll Do Architect and build AI-powered platforms and intelligent systems for ONDC.Design and develop SLM training, fine-tuning, distillation, and deployment pipelines.Build deep knowledge and reasoning systems that combine structured, unstructured, and real-time commerce data.Design agent orchestration frameworks for buyers, sellers, and ecosystem participants.Drive cost-efficient, scalable, and reliable AI infrastructure suitable for India-scale adoption.Contribute hands-on through architecture, coding, reviews, experimentation, and production deployment. What We're Looking For 8-12 years of strong software engineering and research experience.Proven track record of building large-scale distributed systems.Hands-on experience building or training Small Language Models (SLMs), LLM-based systems, or advanced AI platforms.Strong understanding of neural networks, transformers, knowledge systems, model distillation, fine-tuning, and inference optimization.Experience designing intelligent orchestration systems, agents, or complex decision-making platforms.Ability to reason deeply about scale, latency, reliability, accuracy, privacy, and cost.Strong ownership, curiosity, and builder mindset. This role is best suited for someone who enjoys building foundational intelligence systems rather than simply integrating AI APIs. Why ONDC Few opportunities allow you to work simultaneously on: AI & Agentic SystemsCommerce InfrastructurePopulation-Scale TechnologyDigital Public Inf